


Revealed

by LilacNoctua



Series: Worthwhile [8]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background NejiTen, Background shikatema, Bubble Bath, Insomnia, Kissing, M/M, Mild Language, Mild Sexual Content, Nudity, Reunions, Sakura needs a drink, Sharing a Bed, Sparring, Trials, Undressing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:14:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27429277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilacNoctua/pseuds/LilacNoctua
Summary: Gaara shook his head. “If everything goes well here, a great disaster will have been prevented, war will be avoided, many lives spared. There is nothing wrong with celebrating, especially when so many friends have come together over such a great distance for the purpose of peace.”“There is one other thing,” Lee pointed out, pulling Gaara closer to him.“That I get to see you again?” Gaara asked.While the rest of the ninja world gathers to decide the fate of a power hungry tyrant and a treacherous former member of Suna's council, Gaara and Lee are finally able to steal some precious time together.
Relationships: Gaara/Rock Lee
Series: Worthwhile [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1729480
Comments: 144
Kudos: 129





	1. Away Too Long

**Author's Note:**

> As much fun as Gaalee Bingo was, I'm delighted to be back with this series again! We're right in the thick of things now, so this story will probably make the most sense if you have read at least [Old Wounds](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25652368/chapters/62274424/), and probably also [By Your Side](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24701554/chapters/59701078/) before you start this one.

“Gaara, can you slow down a bit? Please? I’m going to sweat my whole face off,” Kankuro whined.

“It’s not like they’re going to start without us!” Temari called, holding a scarf across her face and squinting against the billowing clouds of dust.

“I don’t think that’s why he’s in such a hurry,” Kankuro reminded her as they worked their way through the milling crowds of shinobi from many nations. 

“Still, we don’t have run,” Temari insisted.

“Travelling with him was easier when we could just stuff him in that box.”

Gaara pulled his hat lower over his eyes and smiled. One of the better things to come out of the ambush and subsequent flood in the Land of Rivers that had nearly killed him, was the complete destruction of his palanquin. He had gleefully denied any and every request for funds by the council to have a new one made. In compromise, they had bought him a horse and insisted that he travel this way rather than on foot. She was a lively, graceful creature, as unbothered by the heat and sand of the desert as he was, a dark dappled grey with an elegant dished nose and slender legs, her red reins and saddle blanket decorated with green tassels that fluttered in the wind. Normally she walked at a brisk pace with her neck arched, tail held up like a banner, stepping high. Today Gaara urged her through the crowds in front of the palace at a restless trot, Kankuro and Temari jogging at her heels, Baki hurrying ahead, shouting “Make way for the Kazekage! Stand aside for Lord Gaara!”

“GAARA!!!” 

Something bright orange came hurtling out of the crowd and flew straight at him. The sand leapt up to form a defense even as his horse shied away from the noise and reeled back on her hind legs, fore hooves slashing the air as she screamed. Gaara clung to her back and just barely managed to keep his seat. A bandaged hand shot out and grabbed the reins.

“There, my friend. That is better,” a voice crooned softly in the horse’s ear. “No one will hurt you here. There is no need to be frightened. Just breathe deeply, there we go.”

The horse stilled immediately, leaning her face into the hand that stroked over her nose. Gaara sat like a statue on her back, all his attention fixed on the man who held the reins. It took every bit of will power he possessed not to fling himself out of the saddle.

“Naruto,” Lee said suddenly. “You scared her awfully. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“I was just trying to say hello,” a voice groaned from the ground.

Gaara looked down to find his oldest friend pinned flat on his back by ropes of sand. He hurriedly called the sand back to the gourd which was fastened to the back of the saddle. Naruto sprang to his feet and yanked Gaara clear off the horse’s back, crushing him in an enthusiastic hug.

“It has been so long,” Naruto crowed. “I’m so happy to see you! There’s so much to tell you!

“Would you please not squash the Kazekage,” Kankuro said in his most officious voice.

“Kankuro!” Naruto let go of Gaara and sprang at his brother instead, knocking his hood off as he attempted to ruffle his hair. “Are you getting fucking fat or what?”

Gaara did not hear Kankuro's retort. His eyes had drifted back to Lee, who stood smiling at him, still holding his horse’s bridle.

“Who is this?” Lee asked, voice so soft that Gaara barely heard him under the din.

“I call her Lotus,” Gaara said, watching her snuffle at Lee’s pockets in search of sweets. “I think she likes you.”

Very slowly Lee removed his hand from the horse’s nose and reached out to Gaara. Equally slowly, Gaara stepped forward, allowing Lee’s arm to curve around his shoulders. He raised his own arms, feeling as though he were caught in a dream, and wrapped them around Lee’s waist, finally stepping close enough that he could press his face into the front of Lee’s vest. 

“I have missed you. So much,” Lee whispered fiercely, holding him so tight it almost hurt. 

“Too long,” Gaara whispered back. “You were gone too long.”

He felt Lee nod. “I am sorry.”

“Nevermind,” Gaara breathed. “We’re together now.”

Their reunion was interrupted by another round of joyous shouts. Lotus skittered backwards, nostrils flaring, and was brought up short by her reins tied around Lee’s wrist.

Gaara glanced over Lee’s shoulder and saw Naruto scuffling in the dust with another young man, both of them hooting and laughing. 

“That can’t be Naruto!” A voice in the crowd shouted, and a third young man appeared. Followed by another, and then another, as the name Naruto rippled through the crowd. The cacophony of joyful shouts and laughter reached an unbelievable pitch as Naruto was engulfed by a crowd of boys and young men.

“What is going on?” Gaara wondered.

“Well,” Lee said. “Meeting you during the chunin exams, and losing Sasuke of course, that affected Naruto deeply. He has made a sort of habit of finding the lonely, the angry, those who are hurting inside and have lost their way, and lifting them up again. He sets them back on the right path, gives them something worth fighting for again.”

“Yes, I remember,” Gaara rasped.

“You were the first one,” Lee said, nodding. “He has friends like this all over the world now.”

“Naruto!” A princess swept out of the crowd, waded into the cluster of boys and threw her silk clad arms around Naruto’s neck. To Gaara’s astonishment another one soon followed, bedecked in flowers and exclaiming over how much she had missed him. Then there was a young woman in a priestess’ robes, a kunoichi, a young royal couple. The group around Naruto kept growing.

“I ought to have known,” Gaara said, watching them all.

“Lee! You’re here too!” A young prince broke away from the crowd around Naruto and bounded towards them, a saber tooth tiger pacing at his heels. Lotus whinnied pitifully and strained against Lee’s wrist.

“Do not be afraid,” Lee reassured her. “Chamu is a good friend.” He reached out and patted the tiger on the head as though it were a puppy. Then he and the prince locked their pinky fingers together like some form of handshake. The boy noticed Gaara, still standing tucked under Lee’s arm and his jaw fell open in astonishment.

“Oh of course!” Lee exclaimed. “Hikaru, this is Gaara.”

“The Kazekage,” the boy yelped, bowing low. Gaara returned the bow.

“Gaara!” Naruto called, leaning on the shoulder of a handsome man in a purple uniform and a star headband. “Come meet everybody! Look! Here’s Princess Koyuki and Princess Haruna, and this is Sumaru, and Sasame, and Sora. Oh, and Idate here is the little brother of Ibiki. Can you believe that? And even Ranmaru is here! And Lady Toki and Chishima have a baby now! I feel so old!”

One by one, they turned towards him and bowed.

“It is an honour, Lord Kazekage.”

“Lord Gaara, we have heard so much about you.”

“Please,” Gaara rasped, bowing back to them. “Any friends of Naruto’s are friends of mine. I owe him my life and every good thing I have ever managed to build in it.”

“Yeah, we know the feeling.” Sora grinned and punched Naruto’s shoulder.

“Come on,” Naruto told them all. “We had better get into the palace before everything gets started.”

“Oh, I almost could have forgotten about that,” Lee said quietly to Gaara. “It feels like a festival and everyone is so happy. It does not seem at all like we are here for something so awful.”

Gaara shook his head. “If everything goes well here, a great disaster will have been prevented, war will be avoided, many lives spared. There is nothing wrong with celebrating, especially when so many friends have come together over such a great distance for the purpose of peace.”

“There is one other thing,” Lee pointed out, pulling Gaara closer to him. 

“That I get to see you again?” Gaara asked.

“Yes,” Lee grinned down at him, tilted back the brim of Gaara’s hat and leaned in to kiss him. Gaara’s knees gave out as their lips finally met and Lee had to catch him before he hit the ground.

“Gaara, are you alright?” He cried in alarm.

“Get him out of the heat,” Temari commanded, coming up beside him. “Give the horse to Kankuro.”

“I’m fine, really,” Gaara protested, face burning, as Lee handed over the reins and scooped him off the ground. 

“Are you sure?” Temari fussed. “Lee, take him inside and find some cold water. I have to go make sure our rooms are ready.”

“Lee, put me down,” Gaara insisted. 

As soon as his feet touched the ground again, he took Lee by the hand and started pulling him through the crowd. “Come with me.”

In the palace’s atrium they were met by a uniformed attendant, who bowed to Gaara. 

“Lord Kazekage,” he said graciously. “Welcome to the Wind Daimyo’s palace. A dressing room has been prepared for you if you would like to freshen up before the trial begins.”

“That should do nicely,” Gaara said, and followed the attendant’s directions down the hall and into a small room lit by soft lamps and furnished with a tufted chaise, a large mirror and a wash stand. He slammed the door shut and sand rushed out of the gourd and crept around the edges of the door sealing it shut.

“What-” Lee started to ask, and was interrupted by the crush of Gaara’s lips against his. Gaara pushed at his chest even as he kissed him, forcing him backwards until the backs of his knees bumped into the edge of the chaise and he fell, his hands tangled in Gaara’s long white robe, dragging him down as well. The wide brimmed green hat fell to the floor. 

Gaara’s knees landed on either side of Lee’s hips and he sat back to pull the dust stained white robe over his head and throw it across the room viciously, leaving him in just a pair of red trousers and his mesh undershirt.

“Six months,” he hissed. “Six months and the longest I see you is for two hours on a fucking battlefield.”

“Gaara!” Lee exclaimed, shocked.

Gaara leaned forward to kiss him again, then drew back growling, “Six months I’ve had to get by on the occasional stolen kiss, notes by messenger hawk that can’t say anything important.”

“I am sorry” Lee murmured, bringing his hands up to stroke the sides of Gaara’s face soothingly. “You know we had to. We both had our part to play in bringing in the Kusakage, calling our allies together, making sure this trial could even happen in the first place.”

“I know that!” Gaara snapped. “But knowing that didn’t make it any easier.”

“It is not me you are mad at,” Lee reminded him gently.

“I know, I’m sorry.” Gaara hid his face in Lee’s shoulder, blinking against tears. “You know, when all my letters went unanswered for a full month, I wrote to Tsunade to ask where you were, and she just sent me a note back that said  _ It’s classified. _ That was the worst moment.”

“I was in Lightning Country. She could not write that down. A messenger hawk is too easily intercepted.” Lee said, voice low and soothing as it had been when he had gentled the horse.

“I know,” Gaara sighed.

“The worst moment for me,” Lee told him, wrapping his arms tightly around Gaara’s shoulders. “Was when I tried to visit you on my way home from a mission and was not allowed in. They told me the village was in lockdown due to an attempt against the Kazekage’s life. The Kazekage they called you, as though you were a stranger to me. They would not let me see you, would not tell me if you were okay or if the assassin had been caught.”

“I was fine,” Gaara whispered. “It wasn’t that big a deal, the Council just likes to make a fuss over everything.”

“I am glad you are okay,” Lee said. “I missed you so badly I was making myself sick.”

“Me too,” Gaara said, kissing Lee and tasting tears. He wasn’t sure if they were his or Lee’s. 

Lee sighed softly into the kiss and ran his fingers through Gaara’s hair, not seeming to mind at all that it was sweaty and dusty from the road. His fingers trailed along the back of Gaara’s neck and then slowly down his spine as though counting vertebrae.

Gaara shivered. “I haven’t been able to sleep since you kissed me on the road through the Land of Birds.”

“But that was months ago,” Lee protested, his fingers trailing over the exposed patch of skin between the hem of Gaara’s undershirt and the waistband of his trousers.

“That’s why I’m such a mess,” Gaara whispered, pressing open mouthed kisses down the side of Lee’s neck.

Lee’s hand splayed over his back, underneath his shirt, pressing them closer together. “How can I make it better?”

“You already are,” Gaara whispered against his mouth, then kissed him again. He tangled one of his hands in Lee’s hair and let the other wander down Lee’s side, thrilling at the feeling of hard muscles shifting under soft green fabric. He lost himself in the heat of Lee’s mouth, his blood singing in his veins with each soft whimper and gasp he drew from Lee’s lips, the faint trembling of Lee’s body beneath him. His chest ached, his breath came in short, panting gasps, sublimely blissful relief mingled with the now familiar feeling of terrifying, clamorous longing. He wanted to tear the wrappings away from Lee’s hands, and demand  _ Touch me,  _ to beg him  _ Never let this stop. Please. I’ll do anything. _

Lee’s hand wandered down his back again, trailing over his hip to grip his backside and slide their hips together. Gaara cried out as his own erection was dragged across the hardness in the front of Lee’s pants.

Lee groaned but quickly removed his hand from Gaara’s ass as though worried that he had hurt him. With a frustrated growl, Gaara caught his hand and put it back, grinding his hips down against Lee’s. Lee gripped him harder and gasped against his mouth, “Gaara, Gaara. . .”

Gaara clung to Lee and kissed him savagely as he rocked his hips forward again, and then again, delicious friction overriding all his other senses. Beneath him Lee made a broken sound almost like a sob, or a muffled curse. His back arched off the chaise and his whole body shuddered against Gaara’s, hips pressing up erratically, fingertips digging into the back of Gaara’s thigh. He fell still and then clapped his hands over his face, hiding it from Gaara.

“Lee, are you okay?” Gaara whispered. “Did I hurt you somehow?”

Lee shook his head.

“You’re not okay, or I didn’t hurt you?” Gaara hissed.

Lee only shook his head again. Beginning to panic, Gaara rolled off the chaise to kneel on the floor next to Lee’s head.

“What’s wrong?” he demanded, tugging ineffectually at Lee’s wrist. “Talk to me, please.”

Lee tentatively lifted one hand to reveal a wide, shame filled eye, and a burning red cheek. 

“I am sorry,” he whispered. “I did not mean to.”

“Mean to what?” Gaara wondered. “What happened? What did I do?”

“Nothing,” Lee whispered, reaching out to stroke Gaara’s hair. “It was just. . . I have been so wound up for so long now and seeing you again, kissing you like that again after all that time. I got carried away. It was just too much. . . ”

“I’m sorry,” Gaara whispered.

“You should not be,” Lee shook his head and laughed shakily. “I am just embarrassed that happened so easily. I am sorry if I have made you uncomfortable.”

“What -?” Gaara started to ask, then glancing down at Lee noticed the damp spot seeping through the fabric that covered his hip. “Oh! You . . . really? Just from that?”

“Sorry!” Lee groaned, hiding his face again.

“I did that to you?” Gaara demanded, trying to pry Lee’s hands away from his face again.

Lee nodded, curling in on himself in embarrassment. 

“Lee, come here,” Gaara growled and tugged on Lee’s wrist so hard that he pulled him off the chaise and they fell backwards onto the floor in a heap. Gaara yanked Lee’s face towards him, bumping their noses together painfully in his eagerness to kiss him again. “Don’t be embarrassed. I like making you feel good. I like that I can do that.”

“You have no idea,” Lee groaned.

“I never want to be away from you again,” Gaara whispered in his ear.

“I love you,” Lee sighed, pressing his face into Gaara’s hair and holding him tight. “I love you so, so much.”

* * * * *

Lee hurried into the gallery, and squeezed himself onto the very end of a bench next to Neji, visibly flustered. 

“What is happening? Have I missed anything?”

“They’re still announcing all the officials,” Neji informed him. “It’s been going on for nearly an hour now.

“It wouldn’t have taken so long if the Kazekage hadn’t been late.” Tenten leaned around Neji, her eyes twinkling mischievously. “Hey, are you okay, Lee? You’re all flushed. You look like you’ve been running.”

“And look, he’s changed his clothes,” Neji pointed out, smirking.

Lee ignored them both. His eyes had fallen on a figure seated on a high platform at the front of the hall, behind the Wind Daimyo’s seat, dressed in a long white robe and broad green hat. Standing behind Gaara, Temari caught Lee’s eye, grinned menacingly and drew a finger across her throat. Lee waved guiltily.

“That was meant for you right? I don’t need to start running?” Shikamaru asked, leaning over Lee’s shoulder from his seat in the next row.

“He made Gaara late for the beginning of the trial,” Tenten explained. 

Shikamaru snorted. “Gaara is always late for everything.”

“Look!” Neji interrupted them. “They’re bringing in the prisoners.”

Surrounded by an ANBU unit, the Kusakage, a few members of his Council, and the traitorous former Councilman Kiyomori of Suna were led into the hall and made to stand before the Wind and Fire Daimyos. They were followed by a team of lawyers in long black robes.

“You may commence reading the charges,” the Wind Daimyo declared.

The list of charges was still not complete hours later when the Daimyos called a halt for lunch. The lawyers had interrupted at every possible opportunity to argue about the wording of a charge, or quarrel over the definition of a particular term. They had not yet even touched upon the charges against the Councilmen.

“How long is this going to take!” Lee cried in frustration as his team shuffled along the hallway that would lead them out of the palace and towards their hotel. 

“This is actually the world’s biggest drag,” Shikamaru groaned.

“All that work to catch this bastard, and now we’re all just going to sit around arguing about what he did and didn’t do! No!” Naruto shouted. “What a joke!”

“Politics aren’t sitting well with the next Hokage then?” asked a quiet voice from behind them.

“When I’m Hokage,” Naruto growled, whipping around to face Gaara. “I won’t let anyone waste my time with this kind of bullshit!”

“I’m looking forward to that then,” Gaara said, smiling with one side of his mouth. He fell into step among them.

“Shouldn’t you have a bodyguard with you?” Shikamaru asked him.

“You’ll do,” Gaara replied. “I feel like the threat of being murdered by my sister should anything happen to me is enough to keep you motivated.”

Shikamaru huffed while the rest of the group laughed. Gaara shuffled close enough to Lee to lace their fingers together beneath the voluminous sleeve of his robe. To anyone looking, Lee’s wide smile would have given them away immediately.

“Come have lunch with us,” Neji invited Gaara.

“I’m afraid I can’t. I don’t really get a lunch break. We just eat while we continue to talk behind closed doors,” Gaara sighed. “Do you mind if I borrow Lee for a few moments?”

“Go for it,” Tenten said. “But I think if he makes you late again, your siblings might actually kill him.”

“No danger of that,” Gaara assured them. “I’ll only be a moment.”

Gaara drew Lee aside to the edge of the atrium and stepped in close. He tilted his head to the side and adjusted his hat so that any nosy onlookers would not be able to read his lips and whispered, “My room is at the very end of the hall on the fourteenth floor. There’s a sign with my name on it so you can’t mistake it. Temari and Kankuro are staying one floor down. Move your things in there when you’ve got a chance. Stay with me.”

“Just for sleeping?” Lee asked cautiously.

Gaara hesitated for a long moment, biting his lip. “Yes, just for sleeping. I have missed you.”

“Okay,” Lee breathed, smiling through a dizzying mixture of relief and disappointment. “That will be nice.”

Gaara squeezed his hand. “I’ll see you tonight.”

He stood on his toes and kissed Lee too quickly for him to react and then disappeared, leaving only a few grains of sand floating, glittering, in the air around him.


	2. The Next Step

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be aware that this chapter contains discussion of a characters insecurities and anxieties related to their body image, as well as descriptions of injuries and scarring.
> 
> If you're interested in what's going on with Neji and Tenten in the background of this fic, you can read my Nejiten fic [Truth](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27378121/chapters/66905089). I'll be posting the last chapter of that one in a few days.

Lee found his chance by slipping out of the trial early in the evening. Charges were still being read for the last of the Councilmen, and he had become separated from his team after lunch, finding himself sitting among shinobi from Hoshigakure, so nobody asked him where he was going when he left.

He intended to let Tenten and Neji know where he would be, but from Gaara’s secretive behaviour surrounding the invitation he assumed it was better not to discuss it where he could be overheard.

The halls of the hotel were silent and Lee slipped into his room unnoticed and locked the door behind him. As he was picking his rucksack up off the floor, he heard a faint sniffling sound.

“Hello?” He called, widening his stance surreptitiously.

“It’s just me,” Neji’s voice answered hoarsely from the gap between the bed and the far wall. Lee came around to find him sitting on the floor wedged in the corner, his legs drawn up and his headband removed so that his hair fell across his face. 

“Hey,” Neji whispered, wiping his sleeve across his eyes.

“Neji! What happened to you?” Lee cried, falling onto his knees across from his friends.

“Tenten. . .” Neji whispered. “The same stupid fucking argument again.”

“Oh, Neji,” Lee sighed. “Why do you keep doing this to yourself?”

“Don’t you take her side again, Lee,” Neji snarled. “I know you’ve always been a romantic but would you risk doing something that could cost Gaara his freedom? Would you even consider it?”

Lee bit his lip and shook his head sadly. 

“She just won’t listen to me,” Neji whispered. “She knows why I can’t, but she just. . .”

He scrubbed his sleeve across his face again, the green curse mark blazing on his pale forehead. Lee reached out and touched it gently.

“She is not asking you to marry her, Neji,” he reminded his friend. “She is just asking you to acknowledge the truth of how you feel.”

“Yeah? And then what?” Neji demanded. “Look at you and Gaara, friends one moment, and everything was fine. Then you told him you’re in love with him and suddenly if you have to spend a few weeks apart you’re an absolute wreck who can barely even eat.”

“Yes,” Lee said.

“I’ve spent the last six months watching you cry over unanswered letters, and pine until you couldn’t sleep even in the middle of a mission. You couldn’t focus, you spent your spare time training until you nearly fell apart, and then kept waking up shouting in the night. It was terrifying to watch, Lee. You want me to do that to myself?”

“It’s your choice, Neji,” Lee said, shrugging. “Personally, I would not change anything even if I could.”

“Why not?”

“Because, it is like Gai-sensei said. To love him and be loved by him, is worth all of the trouble I have to go through, well worth the pain of being away from him,” Lee confided.

“You think Tenten would find it worthwhile,” Neji asked, bitterness twisting his voice. “To love me despite all of the suffering that comes along with my clan? Better not to even ask her. I don’t know which answer would hurt worse to hear.”

“If I see Tenten,” Lee said sadly. “I will tell her to talk to Gai-sensei about this. He once gave me some very good advice on loving someone who does not believe that he is worthy of love.” He patted Neji on the knee and stood up to continue gathering his things. “I am staying with Gaara tonight, and probably for the rest of the trial. I will see you later.”

“Lee, wait!” Neji called as Lee reached for the door handle. “If you see Tenten can you please tell her that I’m sorry and I’d like her to come back? Please.”

“Of course, Neji,” Lee promised, giving his friend a thumbs up as he ducked out of the room.

* * * * *

The lock on Gaara’s door was obscured under sand, and clicked open the moment Lee touched it. He kicked his shoes off by the door and tiptoed across the plush carpet to fling himself onto the bed. It was even larger than Gaara’s elaborately carved, red draped bed in Suna and he sank into it rather than bouncing when he landed. 

He had considered returning to the trial, but after his encounter with Neji, and then bumping into Tenten who was in the midst of a very intense discussion with Temari, he was feeling emotionally drained and anxious about his team. He was better off just staying in this nice, quiet room where he could make himself comfortable and await Gaara’s return. 

He let his mind wander back to the morning, to the way Gaara had nearly fainted when Lee had kissed him again for the first time in weeks, the way Gaara had all but dragged him into that dressing room and pushed him onto the chaise. He closed his eyes and shivered as he remembered the intensity of those kisses, of Gaara’s body rubbing up against his, and then. . . He took a deep, steadying breath. It had been such a long time to be away from Gaara, and scared for his safety the entire time. If he didn’t get a grip on himself, it would become far too easy to let himself get carried away and that would ruin everything. While half listening to the beginning of the trial, Lee had decided he had a plan. He would continue to let Gaara take the lead in deciding what was okay and where the lines were that they could not cross yet. There was, after all, only one thing that Lee himself had been reluctant to do, and he had decided that the time for that was finally here. Tonight, if he could find the nerve to ask.

Beyond that, a plan had begun to take shape in his imagination. When all of this was over and he knew that Gaara was safe, that the Kusakage and Councilman Kiyomori would see justice for what they had attempted to do, he was going to ask Tsunade for a short leave of absence. By then, he figured an appropriate amount of time would have passed since that first date. He would ask Gaara to go on a trip with him. Just the two of them alone, somewhere relaxing and romantic. Maybe he’d get a nice room at one of those spas in the mountains. They could soak in the baths, go for long walks together, have gourmet dinners alone in their room. And that would be the moment. It would be perfect; everything calm and relaxed, no Temari hovering about, no Naruto butting in at awkward moments, no missions to worry about, no threats from political rivals or assassins. Just the two of them alone, with nothing to come in between. 

Thinking about it twisted his stomach into knots. Partly because he wanted it to happen so badly that it almost hurt, but also because, after what he intended to try doing tonight, it was difficult for him to believe that Gaara might still be interested

In an attempt to force himself to think about literally anything else, he rolled off the bed, and began pacing around the room. It was much larger than the hotel room that he was supposed to be sharing with his team, and he, Neji and Tenten could all have fit comfortably into the bed like they used to do when they were genin. There was a large gourd propped up in the corner and Lee lifted it idly, testing the weight to see if it would be useful for training if all else failed to distract him. A red leather traveling case had been left on top of the desk, opened, its contents spilling out. Lee knew it would be unforgivably rude to snoop through Gaara’s belongings but curiosity got the better of him. It was okay, he decided, to look at the things that were on the desk, so long as he didn’t start taking things out of the case itself. Mostly it appeared to be white robes and red clothing, tangled now, though he could tell they had been neatly folded until recently, random scrolls and files, an odd assortment of black pens and powders, a box of sugar cubes with the inscription  _ For Lotus, NOT KANKURO  _ scrawled across the top, and laying on top of all of this, a little pair of black silk boxers.

Lee backed away hurriedly. This was definitely not helping. He retreated into the bathroom and his jaw dropped. There was a massive bathtub shaped like a seashell, a towering stack of fluffy white towels and a heated rack to hang them on. The vanity held a dizzying array of shampoos, soaps, lotions, oils, and other things Lee could not identify in every colour and scent imaginable. The floor was marble, one entire wall was covered in mirrors.

Lee made a face at the mirrors and said aloud, “Why would anyone want to watch themselves take a bath?”

“Who knows what goes on in the minds of these pampered lords,” a voice rasped from behind him, causing him to jump a foot in the air.

“Gaara! I did not hear you come in!”

“Of course you didn’t. I was sneaking up on you,” Gaara smirked slightly, leaning against the doorframe.

“How did you even know I was here?” Lee wondered.

“I just had to spend about a half hour listening to my sister rant about how Neji is an idiot and Tenten could do better. Kankuro offered to ask her out instead, so Temari offered to neuter him, and that’s when I made my escape. I figured you would be avoiding that whole mess too. Well, that and the sand on the door let me know.”

“Ugh,” Lee groaned. “Neji was crying in the hotel room when I went to collect my stuff. This has been going on for years now, but it keeps getting worse. Neji will not admit to his feelings because he does not want to drag Tenten into his issues with his clan, but he also will not just break it off either. And Tenten keeps pushing him because she doesn’t want the clan to be able to control his whole life, and it hurts her every time he acts like this but she cannot just walk away either.”

“That sounds. . .” Gaara wrinkled his nose. “Unpleasant.”

Lee snorted. “That is not even the worst of it.”

“And I thought having to listen to Kankuro and Temari bicker all day was bad.” Gaara smiled wryly. “Anyway, I’ve asked to have our dinners brought up here, if that’s okay. I’ve had more than enough of politics and legislation for one day.”

“Thank goodness,” Lee said. “I was looking forward to having you all to myself.”

Gaara’s cheeks turned slightly red and he ducked his head so he could hide his face under his hat. Lee balled his hands into fists behind his back to prevent himself from sweeping Gaara off his feet and kissing him until he could not breathe. 

“I missed most of the afternoon,” Lee said quickly. “What happened.”

“They finished reading all the charges. The lawyers convinced the daimyos to drop a few. While sending spies into an allied village with ill intent is definitely as illegal as shinobi entering a foreign village without permission, it is apparently a matter to be dealt with by the shinobi of that village with as much force as they see fit, rather than a charge you can bring before this type of court.” He sighed wearily. “Anyway, they all plead guilty as charged except for Kiyomori who claims that it is the right of any shinobi to attempt to depose an unfit Kage by any means necessary.”

“Is it?” Lee asked, alarmed.

“Such a thing has never been written into any of the Shinobi Legal Codes or even the honour codes, so it will be for this court to decide. In that way it will be a landmark case,” Gaara explained. “Which means that the only thing that could cause them to drop the charges against Kiyomori is if they find me unfit for office.”

“ _ What? _ ” Lee demanded.

“Relax. I’m not too worried about that second part,” Gaara told him. “Especially if the noise that broke out in the hall was anything to go by.”

“Lots of angry Sand ninjas?” Lee asked.

“Leaf ninjas, too. Naruto made a sound like an angry screech owl. Shikamaru had to work pretty fast with his shadow possession to prevent a riot.”

There was a knock at the door and an attendant came in to deliver their dinner. They sat to eat at the low table, and Gaara watched Lee for a long moment.

“I’ve barely seen you for more than a few minutes at a time these last six months,” he finally said. “And we, uh, didn’t really get a chance to talk this morning. Tell me everything I’ve missed.”

Lee grinned at him around a mouthful of food and then launched into a retelling of everything he had done since they had last had a chance to talk properly.

* * * * *

“There is no way you swam all the way to Kirigakure,” Gaara protested, laughing. “That is not humanly possible.”

“Someone had to push the boat after Gai-sensei broke the mast!” Lee insisted. He was sitting cross legged on the floor, holding Gaara in his lap, feeling like he was finally in the one place on earth he was truly meant to be.

“Why didn’t he use a jutsu to push the boat?” Gaara asked, leaning back to smile up at him.

Lee frowned deeply. “That would not be much of a hot-blooded challenge. Anyway, the swimming was not the worst part.”

“What was, then?” Gaara raised a cup of tea to his lips.

“A tiny octopus got trapped in my suit. It tickled awfully.”

Gaara choked and Lee had to pat him on the back as he giggled and spluttered with his head leaning on Lee’s shoulder, tears streaming from his eyes.

“You made that up,” Gaara accused, his voice hoarse. “And now there’s tea in my nose.”

“It is the honest truth!” Lee swore. “I am sorry about the tea, though.”

He yawned and his jaw popped. Gaara prodded at his shoulder.

“It’s late. You should go to bed.”

Lee bit his lip. “Gaara, there is something I wanted to try. But, if it is too late at night now, it can wait. I know you have not slept in a long time.”

“I can wait a little longer. What is it?”

Lee lifted Gaara out of his lap, set him gently on the floor and stood. He paced away to look out the window over the oasis in the palace’s courtyard, gathering his courage.

“I want you to see me,” he told Gaara, turning around again to face him. He swallowed hard and forced the last word out, “Naked.”

“Oh,” Gaara rasped. He stood and approached Lee cautiously. “Are you sure? You said that that was something. . . difficult.”

“It is,” Lee said. “But I want to anyway.”

“Only if you’re really ready,” Gaara whispered. 

“I think I am.”

“Just to look, right?” Gaara asked.

“Yes,” Lee agreed. “Just to look.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” Lee repeated. “Here goes.”

With a shaking hand, he began untying the knot at his wrist. 

“Wait,” Gaara’s hands shot out but then pulled back again just short of touching him. “Can I do it?”

“Yes,” Lee breathed. “Please.”

He held his hands out towards Gaara who slowly untied both knots, and began unwinding the bandages. Once they had unraveled, he paused to wind them up into two neat spools and set them on the nightstand. He noticed that Lee’s hands bore several new injuries but chose not to say anything about it. 

Lee stood perfectly still as Gaara inched the zipper of his vest down and slipped it off his shoulders, hanging it carefully over the back of a chair. He hesitated for a moment and walked behind Lee to untie the headband that he wore as a belt, deciding that putting his arms around Lee to do it might be too invasive just now. He knelt and tugged at the top of one leg warmer and Lee obligingly lifted his foot to allow it to be slipped off, repeating the motion for the second one. Gaara’s eyes fell upon the tool pouch fastened around Lee’s thigh and his mouth went dry. 

“Is there a buckle,” he asked, his voice coming out ragged and barely audible.

Lee said nothing but turned his leg so that Gaara could see the fastening on the inside of his thigh. He did not look at Gaara, but kept his eyes fixed on the far wall, his cheeks red and blotchy.

Hands shaking, moving slowly so as not to touch Lee any more than was really necessary, Gaara undid the fastenings for the tool pouch, set it aside, and unwound the bandages from beneath it. He sat back on his heels to look up at Lee, considering. He himself was almost painfully excited about the idea of removing the jumpsuit, finally being able to see all of Lee. But looking up at Lee’s face, his eyes shining feverishly, skin reddened, breathing heavily, Gaara worried that it was too much. He was beginning to consider himself a bit of an expert on how confusing and emotionally tangled this kind of thing could be. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He asked softly, standing so he could look more closely at Lee’s face. “Do you want me to stop?”

Lee shook his head hard, then finally met Gaara’s eyes and smiled unsteadily. “I am okay. I want to do this. I am just -” he let out a shaky breath “ - more nervous than I have ever been in my life.”

“Why?” Gaara wondered.

Lee covered his mouth with a trembling hand to stifle a jittery laugh. “It is nothing. Do not worry.”

“You’re lying and I am worried,” Gaara said.

Lee shook his head. “It is like I told you. This is difficult. I know that you love me, but it is like there is this little voice in my head that tells me you will not want me anymore once you have seen . . . everything. I cannot help but feel that you deserve someone who is not so scarred and broken.”

“Do you remember,” Gaara said slowly, stepping just a little closer. “When we were in the hospital after the flood and I told you I was worried about what would happen to me when you finally realized that I don’t deserve to be loved by you?”

Lee nodded, blinking against tears.

“You told me that I deserved love and that I didn’t have to believe you yet, but if I stayed with you, you would prove it.”

“I will,” Lee promised.

“Well, now it is my turn. We don’t have to do this right now if you’re not ready, but if you really want to, then give me a chance to prove to you that I will always love you, and I will always want you.”

“Okay,” Lee whispered. He gestured at the jumpsuit. “Do it.”

Gaara stood on his toes to give him a quick, reassuring kiss, then stepped back to consider the jumpsuit. “How?”

“What?”

“How does it come off? Is there a zipper somewhere?”

“Here.” Lee turned around and pulled at the neck of the jumpsuit to reveal a tiny zipper at the back.

Gaara took hold of the zipper pull and tugged slightly. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Lee breathed.

The zipper eased down slowly, revealing a long, straight, surgical scar down the length of Lee’s spine. Gaara stepped in front of Lee again and pulled the jump suit down past Lee’s shoulders, pausing at his waist to help him free his arms from the sleeves. He took a deep, shaky breath and sank down on one knee, pulling the jumpsuit down past Lee’s hips, his knees, as his knuckles brushed against warm skin dusted with black hair. The suit pooled around Lee’s ankles and he stepped out of it. Gaara stood and backed away, his heart hammering against the inside of his ribcage.

His eyes wandered greedily over strong shoulders and a muscled chest, pausing over three long parallel scars that started at his right shoulder and slashed down across his chest, a notch in his slightly crooked left clavicle where it had healed from a fracture, one rib bone that stuck out just a bit further than it was supposed to. A series of jagged scars marred his left arm and leg, where the crushing pressure of the sand had torn skin from muscle, and ground bones to dust. These were overlaid with the long pink lines of surgical scars. A similar, but long faded scar sat just above his right hip. His chest rose and fell rapidly and Gaara could see his heart beating wildly under his ribs, his well-defined abs taut with anxiety. His underwear was made from some sort of thin fabric without hems or seams, that sat flush against his skin and clung tantalizingly to his hips and the thick muscles at the tops of his thighs. A line of black hair trailed down into the waistband, drawing Gaara’s eye towards the barely concealed shape of Lee’s dick, half hard, caught somewhere between arousal and anxiety. He walked in a slow circle around Lee, taking it all in. 

He was lightheaded, his pulse racing, but the tense set of Lee’s shoulders, and the hard line of his mouth twisted his stomach into knots. He hesitated.

“Are you sure you’re alright?”

Lee nodded resolutely.

“Lee, I -”

“You are not finished,” Lee said hoarsely, gesturing at his underwear.

“Come here,” Gaara answered, sinking against the edge of the bed. “I need to sit down or I’m going to fall over.”

“Are  _ you _ okay?” Lee asked, concern cutting through his anxiety.

“Yeah, much better than okay,” Gaara whispered as Lee stepped closer. He reached out and hooked his thumbs into the waistband of Lee’s underwear and tugged downward before he could lose his nerve. The underwear slipped past Lee’s thighs and Gaara let go, allowing them to drop around his ankles. Gaara wedged his hands underneath his own thighs so he wouldn’t be tempted to touch him, and struggled to remember how to breathe. Lee was now completely bare and Gaara was far too aware of how close he was. 

“Back up,” he rasped. “I want to look at you.”

Lee took a few steps back and stood shifting from foot to foot, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides, his eyes fixed on Gaara’s face as Gaara stared shamelessly.

“Please tell me what you are thinking,” Lee whispered, a note of desperation in his voice.

“I’m thinking you are the most beautiful man I have ever seen in my life,” Gaara whispered back. 

Lee looked genuinely shocked, which caused Gaara’s chest to clench painfully for a moment. 

“You are just saying that,” Lee accused.

“No,” Gaara shook his head. “Every taijutsu specialist I have ever met has had the musculature of a god and an impressive collection of scars, so I had a fair guess at what was under that jumpsuit. But I just,” he paused to take a few deep breaths. “I did not expect you to take my breath away like this. Or I wasn’t prepared for it.”

“But - “ Lee began.

Gaara jumped off the bed and laid his fingers against Lee’s lips. “I don’t ever want you to think that I love you in spite of your body. This body with all its scars, and everything it’s been through, is  _ part _ of why I love you so much. The fact that I’ve always found you incredibly attractive doesn’t hurt either.” 

“Attractive?” Lee repeated faintly when Gaara slid his hand aside to cup his cheek.

“Yes, Lee. Attractive.” Gaara insisted. “You have no idea. It’s taking every bit of will power I have not to touch you right now.”

“Do it,” Lee said.

“What?”

“Touch me. I want you to.”

Gaara took a step back. “You’re sure? You said just to look.”

Lee shook his head ruefully. “I did not think once you had looked that you would want to touch.”

“You were very wrong,” Gaara whispered.

“Apparently.” Lee smiled at him suddenly, the sun bursting out from behind storm clouds. “Touch me.”

Gaara’s hand trembled as he placed his fingers delicately on the long scars that ran across Lee’s chest. One day he would ask for the stories, but now was not the time. He stepped closer and looked up at Lee, seeking permission. Lee nodded and Gaara leaned forward as he trailed his hand across the scars, pressing kisses along them as well, Lee’s skin feverishly hot and slightly salty against his lips. Next he kissed the spot where his collarbone hadn’t healed quite as good as new, then a fading scar on his shoulder. As he had done with Lee’s hands in the desert, he took his time, pressing soft kisses against every little scar, every offset bone. He paid special attention to the scars he himself had left on Lee’s arm, the scars from the risky surgery that had allowed him to pursue his dreams of becoming a ninja, kissing his way unhurriedly down Lee’s spine until he shivered. Meanwhile, he also let his fingers slide over the breadth of Lee’s shoulders, the softness at the inside of his elbows, the spaces between his ribs where Gaara could feel him breathing, the divots between the muscles on his stomach, the jut of his hip bones and the firm slope of his rear. He kissed his way down the scars he had left on Lee’s left leg. Both kneecaps were a mess of criss-crossing scar tissue and fresh bruising, so he kissed those too as his hands trailed down the backs of Lee’s thighs. He lifted Lee’s feet gently off the ground, one at a time, so he could kiss crooked toes and the marks where his leg weights had chafed his ankles. 

When he stood up again, he found Lee standing with both hands pressed over his eyes, bright red in the face, smiling. 

“Are you okay?” Gaara asked.

“So much better than okay,” Lee sighed, echoing Gaara’s earlier statement. He stepped closer to Gaara and kissed him, pulling him close and holding him against his naked chest, sighing contentedly. 

“Can I keep touching you?” Gaara asked, his head spinning, overwhelmed by the scent of Lee’s bare skin.

“I would like you to.”

Gaara reached up and brushed Lee’s hair back from his forehead, running his fingers behind Lee’s ear, down the side of his neck, then trailing down the centre of his chest and over his stomach, following that fine dark trail from his navel until it reached the thicker patch of black hair between Lee’s legs. He paused and looked up into Lee’s face. 

“Can I touch you here?”

Lee took a deep breath, his face reddening. “I want you to, but do you think that might be moving too fast?”

“No,” Gaara said slowly. “I think it will be okay.”

Lee nodded and Gaara lowered his fingers to brush along the length of Lee’s shaft, then pressed his palm up against it. He looked up at Lee, eyes wide, breathing hard.

“I like this,” he whispered. Lee hid his burning face in his own elbow and snorted.

“I’m sorry,” Gaara said, laughing weakly. “That was a stupid thing to say, but I don’t know how else. . . I mean it’s . . . I need. . .” 

He couldn’t find the right words so he caught Lee by the back of the neck and brought their mouths together again, hoping that Lee would be able to feel in his kiss what he didn’t know how to say. Between their bodies, his palm still pressed up against Lee’s dick while his fingertips stroked over its head in a tentative exploration. Lee shivered against him and gasped into his mouth.

Gaara broke away and asked in a whispered rush, “Can I be naked too?”

“Oh god, yes,” Lee said, grabbing the hem of Gaara’s undershirt and dragging it over his head in one swift motion. Gaara was already unbuttoning his pants and shoving them down his hips, along with his underwear, shimmying out of them and kicking them away. He all but threw himself at Lee, gasping as their bare chests collided and Lee’s hands settled on his naked back, holding him close. 

Gaara grabbed two handfuls of Lee’s hair and kissed him, parting their lips to stroke their tongues together even as he stood on his toes to press his hips against Lee’s. 

Lee caught his shoulders and pushed him back, panting for breath. “Gaara, no. What happened this morning, I do not want to. . .”

“I’m sorry,” Gaara gasped. “I think I’m getting carried away.”

“Slowly, remember,” Lee whispered. “Slowly.”

“Okay, slowly.” Gaara repeated, reaching out to run his hands down the length of Lee’s arms. 

“We can still kiss,” Lee reassured him. “Just be careful.”

“Alright,” Gaara whispered, and leaned forward to press his lips against Lee’s again. Gently this time, softly. Lee made a tiny whimpering sound and held Gaara’s head in his hands, thumbs smoothing over his cheeks.

“Better?” Gaara asked.

“Yes,” Lee whispered, then smiled at him. “And so you know, you are incredibly beautiful.”

Gaara felt his cheeks burning so he pressed his face into Lee’s shoulder, a gesture which seemed so much more intimate now that his shoulder was not covered in layers of clothing and ninja gear.

“I don’t want to go back to the trial tomorrow,” he said, his lips brushing Lee’s skin as he spoke. “No, I mean I do. I want to see this through. I just don’t want to sit there for hours on end looking at Kiyomori’s smirking face and listening to those lawyers trying to make sure he never faces any consequences for this. He could have destroyed Suna, and its alliances, maybe even Konoha. And all just for power.”

“He could have killed you,” Lee said softly, his arms tightening around Gaara’s body.

“I’m not even mad about that,” Gaara explained. “Lots of people have tried to kill me.”

“Well, I am mad about that,” Lee declared, his embrace nearly crushing Gaara now. “You are the most precious person in my life, and I cannot stand the idea of anyone hurting you.”

Gaara sighed, closed his eyes, and tightened his arms around Lee. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check out [this art](https://kuro-ookami-kuma.tumblr.com/post/635087826606850048/made-this-for-lilac-writes-for-their-fanfiction/) by @kuro-ookami-kuma on tumblr for the final scene in this chapter!


	3. Between Sleeping and Waking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: alcohol mention

It had been exactly one hundred and six nights ago that the Kazekage’s entourage had been stopped on the road through the Land of Birds by a small group of Leaf shinobi who had slipped out of the trees as silently as shadows. Gaara had been on his way to speak with the Tsuchikage and was already feeling heartsick, having not seen Lee since he had left Suna several weeks earlier. At first, he thought he was experiencing a stress induced hallucination when Lee had appeared in the road ahead of him. 

“I cannot stay,” Lee had told him sadly. “I just wanted to find you before we left this country. Things are getting very intense and I do not know when I will see you again.”

_ Don’t go,  _ Gaara had wanted to say.  _ Come with me.  _ But he was the Kazekage and his first duty was to his people, while Lee had his own village to defend, the Hokage’s orders to carry out, a shinobi’s work to do. So he had remained silent and merely nodded. Lee had stepped forward and kissed him in front of his entire squad, the whole travelling procession of Sand shinobi and his ANBU guards. He had kissed Gaara thoroughly, holding him tight, as though it would be the last time and he was trying to memorize the way it felt.

After that, Gaara had seen Lee only a scant handful of times. Once, crossing back into Wind Country on his way home, he had seen Lee running along the top of a cliff, his hair ruffled by the wind. He had stopped and blown Gaara a kiss, and then ran onwards after his squad, the sound of his voice echoing through the canyon. All of their other meetings had been like the one in the Land of Birds; pre-arranged meetings by messenger hawk had grown too risky and Lee’s squad no longer had the luxury of time to detour past Suna on their way to and from distant missions. So they saw each other by chance only, for a handful of stolen minutes, and a lingering, aching kiss that always felt like it could be the last one. 

Three weeks ago, he had seen Lee for a full two hours. He had been standing at the front of the Suna battle lines when an envoy from Konoha’s ranks was sent to him. Even wrapped in a cloak, he had recognized Lee immediately by his way of running, and had needed to remind himself forcibly not to go running to meet him. Lee had skidded to a stop beside him grinning from ear to ear, and Gaara had flicked one hand up in a surreptitious gesture to remind Lee to keep his distance. If Lee had touched him then, Gaara would have fallen apart in front of his entire army.

“Lady Tsunade says that if there will be a battle, she wants us to use our collaborative jutsu,” Lee had said.

“An excellent idea,” Gaara had agreed, leaning past Lee to nod to Tsunade down the line. He knew that this had nothing to do with the collaborative jutsu, and everything to do with Tsunade’s own experience with having lost someone she loved while fighting elsewhere on the same battlefield, unable to reach him in time.

Lee had fallen into position, covering Gaara’s back, and Gaara had been able to feel joy radiating off him like a song. But there had been no battle that day. The so-called Kusakage, seeing himself massively outnumbered and outclassed, had surrendered. He had turned over Councilman Kiyomori and a few other rogue Sand ninja he was harbouring. He had allowed himself and his own council to be arrested, and transported into the custody of the Wind Daimyo to await trial. Through all of these negotiations, Lee stood at Gaara’s back. As the armies parted ways, he had shaken hands with Temari, and hugged Kankuro. Finally, he had bowed low in front of Gaara, taking his hand as though to kiss his knuckles, but instead he had turned his hand over and pressed a kiss into the palm of Gaara’s hand. Then he was gone. 

To be able to spend so much time with him now, after all of that, still held a dreamlike quality for Gaara. He was beginning to become convinced that he was just trapped in one unending dream, but the fatigue was beginning to show itself as a constant soreness in his limbs, a sluggishness in his every motion, and a haziness to his thoughts that told him that he was most definitely awake. As he had been for one hundred and six nights now. This would be the one hundred and seventh. Since Lee had kissed him on the road through the Land of Birds, sleep had eluded him, no matter how hard he tried. Even once he was sure Lee was safe, the darkest hours of the night still found him awake and pacing around his room, or staring sightlessly at the ceiling. 

Tonight, he still could not sleep. He had thought that being reunited with Lee would allow him to sleep again, but now, as the hands of the clock crept through the early hours of morning, he found himself unable to even close his eyes. Instead he lay staring at Lee as he slept. He admired the way his hair fell back from his forehead and his expressive eyebrows frowned or raised slightly in response to whatever he was dreaming, the long eyelashes that fluttered against his cheek bones, the steady rise and fall of his chest. 

Every few moments, Lee would let out an absurdly loud, rattling snore; a side effect of a nose that had been broken too many times. Lee had a very cute nose, Gaara thought, creeping a tiny bit closer. Actually, there was nothing about Lee that he didn’t consider to be special, or beautiful, or desirable. He just wanted to stare at him forever.

Lee rolled over in his sleep and his arm fell across Gaara’s shoulder. He made a snuffling noise of surprise and scooted closer, gathering Gaara against him. Gaara spent the rest of the night there, with his ear pressed against Lee’s chest, listening to his heartbeat while his breath ruffled his hair. His eyes remained wide open. Even when sweat began to accumulate between his bare skin and Lee’s, he didn’t move. When his leg began to go numb from the weight of Lee’s thigh thrown across it, he still could not bring himself to move away. 

Lee awoke at sunrise, stirring and murmuring sleepily at first, rubbing his face against Gaara’s hair and yawning. Gaara closed his eyes and pretended to sleep as Lee rolled out of the bed, dressed himself quickly and came to sit beside Gaara as he wrapped his hands.

“I am going out for some training, okay?” Lee whispered, brushing Gaara’s hair back away from his face.

“Mm hmm,” Gaara said.

Lee kissed the end of his nose and then hurried out the door. As soon as his footsteps had disappeared down the hallway, Gaara slunk out of bed, found his clothes and crept out the door as well. He tiptoed down the stairs to the floor below and past the room where his siblings were staying to listen at the door next to it for sounds of wakefulness. He knocked quietly against the doorframe.

“Sakura,” he whispered. “Are you there?”

There was silence for a moment and then the door opened just a crack and Sakura appeared in her dressing gown, half her pink hair sticking out sideways. 

“Gaara? What are you doing here?”

Ino appeared silently behind her with a toothbrush sticking out of her mouth, one eyebrow raised inquisitively. Shizune’s head popped around the corner of their bathroom door frame.

“Shh,” Gaara hushed them. “No one can know I’m here. I need you to make me a sleep aid again.”

“Yeah, no problem.” Sakura promised. “If the trial is keeping you up, I can also try to teach you some calming techniques to clear your mind before you sleep.”

“I haven’t slept in one hundred and seven nights, Sakura,” Gaara rasped. “It’s not the trial.”

“That sounds serious,” Shizune whispered, approaching the door. Gaara noticed that she had applied makeup to one eye but not the other. “Maybe Lady Tsunade should take a look at you.”

“No!” Gaara insisted. “I mean, if I take the sleep aid and still don’t sleep I’ll talk to her. I just don’t want to make a fuss.”

“Okay,” Sakura agreed. “It will take a while to brew, but I have all the supplies. Come back after the trial lets out for the evening.

“Thank you, Sakura,” Gaara breathed and hurried back up the stairs to his own room to await Lee’s return.

* * * * *

Gaara picked at his food and exchanged exasperated glances with Tsunade who was sitting next to him. The lunch recess had been dragging on for a full hour now and he found himself longing for the stiff backed chair on the dais where he felt like he was at least accomplishing something by listening to the trial. Behind closed doors, the Daimyos and other various officials just talked in circles. A division was also clearly forming, with the Daimyos and nobility of other civilian nations on one side, and the Kages and leaders of smaller ninja villages on the other.

“I simply do not see the point in making such a big to-do about one ambitious ninja who overreached himself trying to seize power for his village,” the Lord of the Land of Tea was saying.

“Ninjas who break our laws and are exiled from their villages usually become a problem for everyone else,” Tsunade reminded him icily.

“Yes, but to put him to death for his crimes seems a bit extreme. You are shinobi after all, this is part of what you do,” said the Lord of Red Bean Jam.

Next to him, Gaara could feel Tsunade growing increasingly tense. He laid a hand on her arm. “I agree with you that killing him is distasteful. But if this court is to spare his life, it must be done in a way that will ensure that he will not continue to make trouble in the future.”

“Yes, and exile is the traditional punishment,” the Earth Daimyo insisted.

“I recently sent one of my own Councilmen into exile,” Gaara reminded him. “His first action was to seek refuge among my enemies and work with them to attempt to overthrow me and destroy my village, Konoha, and our alliance. Perhaps it seems to you that it is none of your concern, but remember he himself has admitted that he had designs on all five of the great ninja villages.”

“And where would he go? What friends could he possibly have left?” The Daimyo demanded.

“You think there aren’t worse criminals out there who would be glad for his help?” Tsunade reminded them. “I don’t believe for a second that any of those surgical modifications were the discovery of medical ninjas from within Kusagakure. If someone with that level of skill was helping him, that is where he will slink off to if we let him go.”

“And then,” the Raikage added. “We will not have solved this problem at all, but merely drawn it out and convoluted it.”

“But to put him to death for so minor a crime is barbaric!” The Lord of the Land of Tea protested.

“Minor crime?” Tsunade hissed. “Machinations that could unbalance the entire network of alliances between ninja villages are minor crimes? Attempts against the life of a Kage is a minor crime? An ambush that resulted in a flood which caused significant damage to civilian property in the Land of Rivers is a minor crime?”

“I promised my people that they would see him pay for that,” the Lord of the Land of Rivers agreed.

“It doesn’t have to be death,” Gaara said. “But an example must be made. Whatever decision we make should serve the purpose of telling others that grasping for power will bring them nothing positive, that the alliances between our villages and nations are a force to be reckoned with such that to attack one is to attack all.”

“He’s correct,” the Tsuchikage chimed in. “This has less to do with what that Kage wannabe does or does not deserve, or even our own personal feelings about him. It has everything to do with the fact that we are being watched by the whole world right now, and our decision will send them a clear message. What do we want that message to be?”

Everyone began talking at once and Gaara watched from the corner of his eye as Tsunade drained her sake cup. There was a throbbing behind his eyes, and stabbing pains through his skull every time he moved his head. He was beginning to wonder if a little cup of sake might do him some good as well. 

“Excuse me, my lords, my ladies,” a clerk stood in the doorway. “The court is reassembling, if you please.”

Tsunade caught Gaara’s eye as she stood up and grimaced at him. He stood as well and offered her his arm politely. They walked together back into the hall with Shizune, Ino, Sakura, Kankuro and Temari trailing behind.

“Do you really think it’s best to kill him?” Gaara asked quietly.

“If we had killed Orochimaru when we first got a chance, so much pain could have been avoided,” Tsunade whispered. “We were lenient then, and by the time we realized our mistake, he had grown too strong.”

“This man is not Orochimaru,” Gaara reminded her as they took their seats. “He is a coward grasping for power and manipulating the ambitious and restless.”

“I know,” said Tsunade. “I don’t care whether it is death, I just want to be sure that he does not become a problem for someone else to deal with down the line because we did not do our jobs properly here.”

“Agreed,” Gaara whispered as the court began presenting the evidence for the damage done in the landslide. 

He looked up to the gallery, his eyes searching for a spot of green, and found him sitting next to Naruto, clashing garishly against his customary orange. They both waved to him and he tipped his head slightly in a subtle acknowledgement. As he watched, Naruto nudged Lee and whispered something in his ear. Lee’s face turned red but he nodded and smiled. 

A little further down the same bench, Gaara spotted Tenten and Neji sitting very close, side by side. He suspected that their clasped hands would be hidden between them on the bench. They were whispering with their heads close together and Tenten reached out to tuck a strand of hair back behind Neji’s ear. 

* * * * *

Gaara had never paid much attention to religion or speculation about the afterlife, other than to vaguely accept that if there was a hell, that was probably where he was destined to end up. Sometimes, on particularly bad nights, he would wonder what it might be like, fret about the fact that he couldn’t remember what it was like to be dead. But now, Gaara was thinking that if heaven could be a place on earth, this must be it. Right here, in this absurdly large bubble-filled bathtub, warm water up to his shoulders, sitting between Lee’s legs and leaning back against his chest as Lee’s fingers worked shampoo through his hair. Even if it wasn’t heaven, it was definitely the safest and most relaxed he could ever remember feeling in his life. 

Behind him, Lee began giggling and Gaara cracked one eye open to look at the mirror opposite them. Lee was grinning, a mischievous light in his eye, as he twisted Gaara’s soapy hair into a single spike on top of his head. 

Gaara rolled his eyes and batted Lee’s hands away. He pulled two chunks of his hair down in front of his face and raked his fingers through the back to make it stick out, then spun around to face Lee.

“ _ Naruto _ ,” he hissed. “I am Sasuke Uchiha. I have emotional problems so now we must fight each other to the death for absolutely no reason.”

Lee spluttered wildly, nearly inhaling bubbles in shock. 

“Okay, now do Naruto,” he encouraged Gaara, reaching out to rearrange his hair into odd spikes.

“I will be the Hokage, believe it!” Gaara insisted, though he was starting to giggle and it was rather ruining the effect. “But first I need to eat sixteen bowls of ramen.”

Lee slapped the surface of the water in delight. “Okay, here’s another.” 

He tilted all the hair spikes precariously to one side. 

“Oh, I’ve got it,” Gaara said after a moment of consideration. He put one hand over his eye and sank down until the water covered his nose, trying hard to look as bored and exhausted as possible.

“That is almost too accurate,” Lee chuckled.

“How about this one?” Gaara smoothed his hair down from the crown of his head so that it fell over his forehead. “I am the most adorable ninja in Konoha, but if you fight me I will not hesitate to use the Primary Lotus technique!”

“Stop it,” Lee protested. “I do not sound like that!”

Gaara pushed his hair away from his face and smiled. Suddenly Lee was hugging him so fiercely he could barely breathe, his face rubbing against Gaara’s soapy shoulder, limbs shaking slightly. 

“Lee,” he rasped. “Stop squishing me, I don’t want to get sand in the bath.”

Lee quickly loosened his hold and gave him a watery smile by way of apology. Gaara leaned in to give him one damp, reassuring kiss, then let Lee lay his head back and begin pouring warm water from a pitcher to rinse away the froth of shampoo, gently running his free hand through Gaara’s hair. Gaara closed his eyes and let himself drift on the surface of the bath.

“You are so beautiful,” Lee whispered. “With your beautiful red hair and beautiful green eyes and a beautiful face and beautiful - Oh!”

Gaara had turned around to kiss him suddenly. “Alright, I get it. You’re probably the only person on earth who believes that though.”

Lee snorted. “Please. I am surprised that I have not yet had to fight half of Suna.”

Gaara rolled his eyes. “That’s because I’m the Kazekage and a powerful ninja. Not because of the way I look.”

“Also,” Lee went on, undeterred. “I have discovered that you are very funny. I did not know that about you before, but when no one is looking but me, you are so silly.”

“I didn’t know how to before,” Gaara said, leaning his head back on Lee’s shoulder. “I like laughing, but I feel like I shouldn’t do it in front of other people. It’s not really proper behaviour for the Kazekage, you know.”

“Surely if Tsunade can get away with all the things she does, you can be a bit silly,” Lee insisted.

“I am sometimes,” Gaara shrugged. “But not the same way I can be with you.”

“Oh!” Lee exclaimed. “Then I know another fun thing we can do in the bath!”

“What’s that?” Gaara wondered.

Lee scooted Gaara away from him, skimmed a double handful of bubbles from the surface of the bath and smoothed them over the lower half of his face. “Bubble beard!”

“I want one. Give me one too.” Gaara insisted, presenting his face for Lee to cover in bubbles. They turned to look at themselves in the mirror and both began giggling all over again.

“Maybe this is why they put the mirrors there,” Gaara concluded.

“Somehow I doubt that,” Lee said, adding more bubbles to the end of his beard. “Can you picture those stuffy lords doing something like this?”

“Lee,” Gaara said very seriously. “I’ve just spent all day with those stuffy lords, please do not try to make me picture them taking a bath.”

Lee laughed brightly, wiped away the beard of bubbles and gathered Gaara back against his chest again, bracketing his legs around Gaara’s beneath the water.

“You know,” he said. “It is amazing how comfortable this is. Just yesterday, I was terrified to take my clothes off in front of you and now this feels perfectly natural. It just feels right.”

“Mm hmm,” Gaara agreed, letting his eyes fall shut. “From now on, let’s just be naked all the time.”

There was a long silence, punctuated only by the lapping of the water against the sides of the tubs. Lee’s chest rose and fell slowly beneath his back. Gaara wanted to stay here, just like this, for as long as he could. His eyelids were too heavy to open again, his limbs had turned as soft as overcooked noodles in the warm water that surrounded him. And Lee was here. Finally, after everything, Lee was here.

“You are tired,” Lee announced when Gaara started to drift off. “Time for bed.”   
He stood, lifting Gaara out of the water and setting him on his feet on the fluffy bath mat. He scrambled out afterwards, grabbed a towel off the heating rack and wrapped it around Gaara’s shoulders, then tied another around his own waist. He picked up a third towel and began drying Gaara’s hair, as Gaara blinked owlishly around the bathroom and struggled to hold his head up. 

“Lee, you’re going to get cold if you just stand there dripping like that,” Gaara murmured.

“No, I will be fine,” Lee insisted. “But I sometimes daydream about drying you off with a nice warm towel when you get out of the bath and now I actually get to do it.”

“This is what you daydream about?” Gaara asked, feeling his face heat.

“Yes,” Lee admitted. “I know you are much stronger than I am and do not need me to look after you, but I still like to try.”

“I like it when you do,” Gaara whispered. “It makes me feel loved.”

“You are loved,” Lee replied, kissing him on the forehead. “Now, go get in the bed.”

Gaara paused at the edge of the bed to drink the sleep aid that Sakura had brewed for him and felt his eyes beginning to close even before he could lay down. He rolled under the covers, and the last thing he felt was Lee’s arms encircling him as he finally fell asleep.


	4. Education

“Mr. Kiyomori,” the Wind Daimyo finally announced. “This court finds your assertion that any shinobi has the right and the duty to depose and replace an unfit Kage by any means necessary, to be correct and supportable. No, sir. Please do not celebrate just yet. We find this remark to be true for all shinobi of all nations. This court has unanimously agreed that we would not even consider convicting a shinobi of any crimes committed in the course of trying to overthrow a Kage whom they could reasonably prove to be detrimental to the wellbeing and livelihood of their village. Therefore, Mr. Kiyomori, if you wish to justify your actions, the onus is on you now to prove to this court that Lord Gaara is unfit to hold the office of Kazekage. We will give you three days to prepare your evidence.”

“But my lord,” one of the lawyers piped up. “Lord Gaara is an active member of the jury.”

“Very well then,” agreed the Wind Daimyo. “Lord Gaara, for this part of the proceedings, would you mind stepping down from your seat on the jury?”

“Not at all,” Gaara rasped, his eyes boring into Kiyomori.

“And would you care to prepare a defense?” the Fire Daimyo offered.

“Yes, thank you,” Gaara agreed quietly, still not taking his eyes off his former Councilman. “It would be my pleasure.”

“Very well then,” the Wind Daimyo said again.

Before he could continue, another lawyer spoke up. “My lords, many of those shinobi who supported our client’s cause and shared his belief that Lord Gaara is unfit to hold office were killed by Gaara’s supporters or forced into exile as rogue ninja.”

“How is that our problem?” Tsunade demanded. “Shinobi kill to protect their villages, their leaders and their squads. Those who endanger these things we hold dear either die or are cast out. I think your admission that so many of your supporters were lost speaks volumes about the legitimacy of your attempts against the Kazekage.”

“Or does it speak volumes about Lord Gaara’s tyranny?” the lawyer demanded. There was a sharp crack up in the gallery as Lee’s grip on the seat of the bench finally caused it to splinter. A long ringing silence filled the hall.

“That shall be for the court to decide in three days time,” the Wind Daimyo finally announced.

“Unbelievable,” Tsunade raged, as they exited the hall. “Who does he think he is? Allowing that wrinkly pile of dicks to cast aspersions on you in public like that. . .”

“He thinks that he’s the Wind Daimyo,” Gaara replied calmly.

“I don’t give a shit,” Tsunade growled. “It’s still insanely inappropriate.”

“I don’t think he likes me much,” Gaara admitted. “He’s had difficulty making cuts to the village budget since I gained office.”

“I’d like to make a few cuts to his -”

“Tsunade!” Shizune interrupted quickly. “We’re supposed to meet the Dowager Lady of the Land of Stone for lunch, remember?” 

Shizune and Sakura steered their Hokage down the corridor, leaving Gaara alone with his siblings.

“I like that woman,” Kankuro told them. “She gets me.”

“Tsunade is a legend,” Tenten spoke up from behind them. “She’s so strong and capable.”

“Not to mention hot for her age,” Temari added.

“Yeah, that too,” Tenten gushed. 

Gaara wasn’t listening to them anymore. He had noticed Lee behind Tenten, standing sheepishly beside Naruto as Neji scolded the pair of them. 

“Absolutely inappropriate,” Neji was saying as Gaara drew closer. “This is a high court of several allied nations and everyone is watching us. This is not a battlefield or a school yard. You cannot ‘beat the stuffing,’ out of lawyers, Naruto. And you, Lee, should know better than to go around breaking furniture and calling officials names.”

“But Neji! He said -”

“I heard it, Lee! You’ll get to say your piece when we present Gaara’s defense in three days. And you will do it properly.”

“Man, this sucks!” Naruto wailed. “We’re ninja! Why have we been trapped in this stupid hall for over a week listening to this shit, as if we didn’t already know what they did?”

“It all has to be proved beyond any shadow of a doubt,” Gaara explained. “Otherwise, if there are still people out there who sympathize with them, they will try to claim that we prosecuted these men unfairly. We would make martyrs of them, turn them into symbols of dissent and rebellion. If we are going to punish them in any way for what they’ve done, everyone must first know exactly what it is that they did.”

“But we already do know,” Naruto complained.

“Yes,  _ we  _ know,” Gaara pointed out. “But everyone else does not. This is as much for the press as it is for the sake of protocol.”

“Ugh!” Naruto shouted. “Neji, you should have killed him when you had the chance!”

“Okay, let’s all cool it before we attract any attention,” Kankuro said soothingly as he came over to lean his elbow on Naruto’s shoulder. “Naruto, focus right now on preparing a character defense for my brother. You know him better than most people, and I know they’ll dig up a lot of shit from the past and try flinging the whole demon vessel thing in our faces. You’re our perfect counter attack for all that.”

“Alright!” Naruto shouted. “Don’t worry, Gaara! I’ll tell ‘em!”

“You had better prepare a defense too, Lee,” Temari decided. “If we’re defending Gaara as a shinobi, a Kage and a person, the court will want to hear from you and they would probably make something of it if you didn’t take the stand.”

“I would love to,” Lee declared. “I will not allow them to get away with saying these horrible things about Gaara.”

“Thanks, Lee,” Gaara said quietly.

“Come on, Lee.” Temari grabbed him by the arm and started dragging him away. “We’re going to go upstairs and I’ll talk you through the kinds of things you’ll need to say and what sort of questions you should be prepared to answer.”

“You’re in real trouble now, Gaara,” Kankuro said as he watched them go. “Those two teaming up? What a nightmare.”

“Teaming up?” Gaara asked.

Kankuro snorted. “This morning Temari told me she went into your room and found Lee absolutely panicking because you were doing that creepy thing where you just won’t wake up. She didn’t even know he’d been staying in your room. I figured she would be planning his murder but instead she said that she was grateful that you have someone who tries so hard to look out for you. Grateful. Can you believe that?”

“That’s wonderful,” Gaara breathed.

“Is it, though?” Kankuro asked sceptically. “Because there are no two bigger mother hens than those two. Combine that with how mean Temari is and Lee’s stupid, endless energy?” He shook his head. “Good luck, bro. Nice knowing you.”

“You know what, Kankuro,” Gaara retorted. “I think you’re just a little jealous that no one looks after you. Is it middle child syndrome?”

“Come to think of it,” Naruto said, sidling up alongside Gaara. “He does seem awfully lonely. And sad. Maybe he really does wish he had someone like Lee to look after him.”

“No!” Kankuro insisted. “I am not jealous of Lee and Gaara. Holy shit, dude, spare me the thought.”

“He just needs someone special in his life,” Gaara concluded.

“No. Shut up,” Kankuro protested.

“You know, I’ve noticed Akamaru really likes you,” Naruto told Kankuro. 

“No. Nope. Absolutely not. We are not doing this now,” Kankuro turned very pale beneath his face paint and turned and fled down the corridor.

Naruto cackled and slapped Gaara on the back. “That’s always fun.”

* * * * *

The door to the room next to the one his siblings were staying in flew open and Sakura appeared, grabbed him by the arm and towed him inside. 

“Come in here for a moment. I need to talk to you.”

“Okay? Sure?” Gaara straightened his hat and tried not to look bewildered. 

“Sit,” Sakura ordered, pushing Gaara down on the foot of her bed and pulling up a chair to sit in front of him. Gaara had the sudden uneasy feeling that he was in a doctor’s office for an appointment he didn’t remember scheduling.

“What can I do for you, Sakura?” He asked as evenly as possible.

“We’re going to have a little chat,” Sakura informed him. “Now, this won’t be fun for me either, but I am a medical ninja, so I know what I’m talking about and it’s my job to make sure you learn.”

“Learn what?”

Sakura ignored him and kept talking, as though she had rehearsed this speech beforehand. “Now, I know Gai-sensei has always been open with his team about these types of things, and he and Kakashi-sensei gave Lee a talk like this recently, and I trust those two to have his best interests at heart. But neither of them are really up to date on science or medicine, and they’re both a little bit nuts. I’m sure Lee will listen to them, but really we both know you’re the responsible one in that relationship so I want you to be able to make informed decisions.”

“I’m the responsible one?” Gaara repeated incredulously. “Sakura, I’m sorry but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Sex, Gaara!” Sakura exclaimed. “I’m trying to talk to you about sex.”

“Oh. Why?” Gaara’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Did Temari put you up to this? I’ve told her already, we’re taking things slowly.”

Sakura took a deep breath. “Temari doesn’t know I’m talking to you at all. But it’s not really a secret now that Lee is staying up in your room, and so I’ve decided that there are certain things you should know so that when you  _ do  _ decide to have sex, you can do it in a way that’s safe and enjoyable for both of you.”

Gaara stared blankly at her until she started to fidget in her chair. Then he leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees and steepled his hands under his chin. “Tell me everything you know.”

“Oh. Okay.” Sakura agreed. “So let’s start with the basics. Do you remember sex ed from your academy days?”

“I never went to the academy,” Gaara confessed. “Everything I already know about this subject, I learned from anatomy textbooks, fiction, and listening to people talk.”

“Now, when you say fiction,” Sakura said cautiously. “What kind of books have you been reading?”

“I like to indulge in the occasional romance,” Gaara admitted, his face impassive beneath its layer of sand. “The sort of thing Temari calls chick lit. That’s a secret, by the way. Please don’t repeat it.”

“Rest assured. Everything said in this room is subject to doctor-patient confidentiality. Even Ibiki couldn’t get it out of me.” Sakura promised.

“Also, your sensei loaned me one of his books once. That was certainly educational.” 

“Okay, no. Please erase everything you learned from that book from your memory. Did you ever meet Naruto’s creepy mentor, Jiraiya? Well he wrote those and he  _ definitely  _ does not have a healthy attitude towards sex.” She shuddered. 

“Yes, I had gathered,” Gaara agreed. “Go on.”

“So the first and most important thing is always consent,” Sakura explained. “Before anything can happen it is very important to make sure that both partners know what is about to happen and have given clear, verbal consent.”

Gaara nodded. “Makes sense.”

“After that communication is very important,” Sakura went on. “You have to make sure that both of you are letting the other know what you like, what you want, what you’re not okay with, where your boundaries are, that sort of thing.”

“We already do that,” Gaara confirmed.

“Excellent. Keep it up.” Sakura gave him her most professional medical ninja smile. “Now, when it comes to giving and receiving pleasure, you always have a lot of options, and we can talk more about that later, but often when people talk about sex what they really mean is penetrative sex, and that’s where the greatest risk of injury or other complications is.”

“Right.”

“Have you thought about it at all?” Sakura was beginning to look a little uncomfortable which made Gaara feel less wrong-footed.

“A bit.”

“That’s a good start. Thinking about what you’re comfortable with and what you might like before you actually get there will help you make decisions.” 

“Is it going to hurt?”

“That’s an excellent question.” Sakura took yet another deep breath. “So the important thing to remember is that the first time will always be a bit awkward, and it could even be uncomfortable. This is going to take a fair bit of practice to get right, so don’t be discouraged if there aren’t any fireworks the first time around.”

She looked at Gaara to make sure he understood and he nodded.

“But to prevent pain, it’s really important that you both keep your nails trimmed and filed, use a lot of lube, and again, communication is key. Sometimes something as simple as a better angle can make all the difference.”

“Where do we get lube?” Gaara asked.

“Oh!” Sakura sprang out of her chair and began rummaging through one of the many suitcases left open on the floor. She returned with a double handful of little tubes and bottles which she dropped into Gaara’s lap. “Here. These are all sample sizes. Use them all and take note of which ones you like best. Everyone will be different. Once you find one you like, get a full size. I’m happy to act as your supplier if you need to be discreet because of your, you know, political situation.”

“Thank you.”

“And remember, you can’t use too much of that stuff. Don’t be stingy with it. If you have to ask whether it’s enough, use more.”

“Noted.”

“Okay, so on to the next. . . wait a minute.” Sakura jumped out of her chair again, strode to the door and yanked it open. She reentered the room dragging a struggling Sai by his ear. “What do you think you’re doing eavesdropping at my door? This is a private conversation!” She shook him like a wolf would shake a rabbit.

“Ow! Sakura! I just wanted to know, I mean this sounds like important information!” Sai whined. “It’s hard to find this in books.”

“Let him listen,” Gaara decided. “I don’t mind so long as he doesn’t repeat anything.”

“I swear I won’t,” Sai pleaded, tears beginning to gather in his eyes. Sakura released his ear and Sai scurried away to sit next to Gaara - far too close for comfort - and pulled out a notebook and pen.

Gaara ended up being glad he had let Sai stay. Sai asked questions that Gaara had felt were too awkward or explicit to be voiced, and Sakura answered them all with a steady, professional tone, not even batting an eye at the most uncomfortable ones. If Gaara had to watch Sai make squirm-inducing anatomical drawings all the while, it was a small price to pay for this type of information.

“Any more questions?” Sakura finally asked, smiling brightly but visibly relieved to be nearing the end of this conversation.

“I have a question for Gaara,” Sai replied.

“Go ahead,” Gaara said.

“So, who’s fucking who? Are you fucking Lee or is he fucking you? Wait, no. Let me guess - OW!” 

Sakura had grabbed him by the hair and was dragging him towards the door, scolding him about being vulgar and asking intrusive questions. She gave him a swift kick that sent him sprawling into the hallway. Gaara tried to keep his face impassive as he stood up.

“I should really be going, too, Sakura,” he said. “But thank you for having this talk with me. I know it was uncomfortable but I appreciate it. You’ve really helped me and you’re a good friend.”

Sakura’s face turned as pink as her hair. “You’re welcome.”

Gaara hurried out into the hall and up the stairs. Lee was still out when he reached their room so he locked the door and crawled under the covers of the bed to think through the whole conversation. He was thankful someone had sat him down and talked him through it all before he put himself in a situation where he would really need to know all of this. The talk Baki had tried to give him when he was fifteen had been more awkward than enlightening. He had tried to educate himself but with his resources limited to what was available in the Kazekage’s library and the public overly interested in his every move lately, it had been difficult. 

He thought about what Sakura had said about thinking about what he might like and might want, and about Sai’s final, inappropriate question. He knew he wanted Lee. He knew he wanted to touch him, to be as close to him as possible, to make him feel good. He closed his eyes and experimentally tried to imagine what it might be like to feel Lee inside of him. A violent shiver ran up his spine, his toes curled, he suddenly found himself breathing hard as though he’d been in a fight. He opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling, pondering the way his body reacted to merely imagining the act. Then he closed his eyes again and imagined Lee spread out beneath him, red faced, mouth open, eyes locked on Gaara. Heat flashed through his veins and pooled low in his belly, suddenly making it impossible to lie still any longer. He pressed his face into a pillow and groaned desperately as he slid his hand down to open the front of his pants.

* * * * *

“This trial might go on for some time yet,” Gaara whispered just as Lee was falling asleep.

“Hmm,” Lee murmured. “That would be okay with me.”

He nestled his face against the crook of Gaara’s neck.

Gaara laughed softly. “Yeah. The trial itself is getting a bit stressful. But this. I could get used to this.”

Lee levered himself up on his elbow to lean over Gaara. “Are you worried about tomorrow.”

“Of course not,” Gaara whispered, then shook his head. “No, I’m lying. I shouldn’t lie to you. Yes, I’m worried.”

“Your friends are looking out for you, and your people are prepared to defend you,” Lee reminded him. He leaned down to kiss Gaara quickly. “And I will be there. I will set them straight.”

“I know, Lee,” Gaara sighed. “Thank you. I’ve just worked so hard to put the past behind me, and I know they’re going to drag all of that up again for everyone to see. On the one hand, maybe I deserve it. I’ve done things that can never be forgiven. On the other hand, I’m angry and hurt because I know he’s only doing this for his own gain and not for the good of the village at all.”

“Gaara,” Lee said, his voice ringing and passionate in the darkness. “You absolutely do not deserve to be put through this. As for unforgivable,  _ I  _ think you can not only be forgiven and redeemed, but that it should go beyond that. The things that were done to you to push you to such extremes. . .”

“Lee, I really don’t want to have this conversation again tonight,” Gaara whispered.

“Okay,” Lee agreed, laying back down beside him again. “Tomorrow, if you are feeling stressed or hurt during the testimony, I will be there. Just look for me. And afterwards I will be here, to do this.”

Gaara found himself engulfed in Lee’s arms, his back pressed against his chest, legs entwined, as Lee pressed a series of soft kisses along his naked shoulder.

Gaara smiled. “That’s what I’m counting on.”


	5. What It Means

“Where have you been, Lee?” Temari pounced on him as soon as he reentered the room. “Look at you, you’re a total mess!”

“I was out for morning training,” Lee yelped. “Where is Gaara?”

“Next door with Tsunade. Hurry up and get in the shower. We don’t have much time.” Tenten shoved him roughly towards the bathroom.

Lee showered as quickly as he could and hurried back into the room to find the two girls still standing there with their backs to the bathroom door. Kankuro had joined them as well, though it took Lee a moment to recognize him with his head uncovered and his formal clothing.

“Don’t even think about it,” Temari snarled as he hurriedly reached for a clean jumpsuit.

“We’ve brought you clothes to wear,” Tenten explained, pointing at the bed where a black suit was laid out neatly.

“Tenten, you know I hate wearing these,” Lee complained.

“There isn’t time for this nonsense, Lee. Put the damn suit on,” Temari commanded. “You want them to take your testimony seriously, don’t you?”

“Of course,” Lee grumbled, shuffling into the stiff garments unhappily. He had a strong suspicion that if it weren’t for Tenten’s presence, Temari would not be standing still with her back turned, and was grateful for his teammate’s consideration of his sensitivities, even at a time like this.

“You can turn around now,” Lee informed them once he was dressed. His suspicions were confirmed when Temari immediately flew across the room and began fussing with his clothes and his hair.

“You remember everything we talked about?” She demanded. “Everything you’re supposed to say?”

“Of course, Temari,” Lee reassured her. “Believe me, I know how important this is.”

“And remember, they’re going to ask you a lot of questions about the nature of your relationship with Gaara,” Temari went on. “Don’t lie to them, but it’s better if you can avoid telling them that you and Gaara are, you know, like this.” She gestured vaguely at the bed that he and Gaara had been sharing since the beginning of the trial.

“Lee usually just refers to Gaara as his most precious person,” Tenten chimed in helpfully. “Or, on one particularly horrific occasion, as the ‘Beautiful creature from heaven who has filled his heart with the eternal sands of love.’”

“I am not good at poetry!” Lee cried, turning even redder as Tenten giggled. “And you promised not to quote that anymore.”

“Okay, whatever,” Temari interrupted. “Say he’s your close friend, that he’s precious to you, I don’t really care. Just don’t tell them anything you don’t absolutely have to.”

“Why not?” Lee wondered. Temari had been more accepting of him lately, but it stung to think that she might be embarrassed by his relationship with her brother. Or that Gaara might be embarrassed by it. 

“It’s not that it’s a secret,” Kankuro explained. “It’s just not official public knowledge either and this is not how we had planned on announcing it.”

“How  _ are  _ you planning on publicly announcing it?” Tenten wanted to know.

Before either of them could answer her, there was a knock on the door and Neji’s voice called, “Tenten, can you come out here for a moment?”

“We’re a bit busy, Neji,” Tenten snarled at the door.

“Tenten,” Neji pleaded, opening the door to let himself in. “I just want to talk to you alone for a moment.”

“Anything you have to say to her, you can say in front of me,” Temari announced, planting herself next to Tenten. Neji glared at her.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Tenten agreed. “If you can’t say it in front of my friends, it’s not worth hearing.”

Neji exhaled hard through his nose and closed his eyes. “Okay, fine. I made a mistake. A really big mistake. I thought I was protecting you, but I was selfish and I lied, and I ended up hurting you. I’m sorry, okay? This is not what I wanted and I regret it.”

“Oh, you regret it, do you?” Tenten laughed but there was no humour in it, only a knife edge of pain. “Well, I guess that makes two of us.”

“No!” Neji cried. “I don’t mean that. I mean I regret having caused you all this pain in the first place. It wasn’t right. I want to make it right.”

“And how do you intend to do that?” Temari demanded, putting her arm around Tenten who looked like she was on the verge of tears.

“Have dinner with me tonight,” Neji said softly. “Let me do this properly.”

“It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?” Tenten laughed that horrible, pained laugh again and Lee wanted to run across the room and hug her. He remained frozen in place next to Kankuro who looked every bit as confused and alarmed as he felt.

“I did everything wrong,” Neji pleaded. “I just want to start over. Please give me another chance, Tenten.”

“You’ve had so many chances, Neji,” Tenten whispered.

“That’s right,” Temari agreed.

“You know the way I feel,” Tenten went on. “And yet you keep getting my hopes up only to just dash them right back down again the next day. I can’t keep doing this.”

“Tenten,” Neji said softly. “You know that I’m in a complicated situation and I can’t. . . You know how I feel too, and-”

“No, I don’t!” Tenten shouted, tears beginning to stream down her face. “I don’t know how you feel, Neji! I don’t have a fucking byakugan, I can’t read your mind! How the fuck am I supposed to know how you feel if you’ll never tell me?”

“We should probably go,” Kankuro muttered, tugging on Lee’s elbow where he stood petrified with horror, watching his team unravel before his eyes. Lee ignored him.

“Tenten, please,” Neji begged. “Life in the branch family of the Hyuga clan is not something I would ever inflict upon you.”

“So someone else then?” Tenten demanded bitterly.

“No!” Neji protested, shocked. “There will never be anyone else for me. I couldn’t do that to you, and I could never even look at someone who was not you.”

Tenten went very still. “But Neji, I told you, I don’t care. I don’t ever have to be part of the Hyuga clan or even go anywhere near them. I told you that we could be together without all of that.”

“I know,” Neji whispered. “And I didn’t want to ask you to make such a sacrifice for my sake. I wanted to give you a chance to move on and find someone who had more to offer you.”

“That’s fucking stupid,” Tenten said, and began crying all over again.

“I know it was,” Neji agreed. “I see that now. That’s why I’m asking you to let me try again. Please, let’s do this properly.”

Tenten nodded. “Okay. But, Neji?”

“Yes?”

“Can you ask me again later today when I’m not crying?”

Temari threw her hands in the air, grabbed Kankuro and Lee and dragged them out of the room. As the door closed, Lee saw Tenten step into Neji’s arms.

* * * * *

The court gave Kiyomori the morning session to present his evidence. As they had expected, he brought up examples of Gaara’s past troubled behaviour, the violence of his youth, his former status as a jinchuriki. He even tried to use his father’s numerous attempts to have him assassinated as proof that Gaara was a threat to Suna. 

“His father was a threat to Suna,” Tsunade pointed out coldly. “He was the one who allowed himself to be seduced by Orochimaru and persuaded to attempt to start a war with Konoha that could not be won.”

There was a rippling murmur of agreement across the courtroom and Kiyomori spat on the ground in front of Tsunade’s seat on the dais.

“Better that he had crushed Konoha when he had a chance,” he hissed.

The hall broke out in angry shouts, and the Wind Daimyo himself needed to shout over them to restore order.

Kiyomori had managed to secure temporary clemency for a few rogue Sand ninjas who claimed that they had been forced to leave Suna in order to flee the tyranny of the Demon Kazekage. It was at this point that Gaara started shooting distressed glances over his shoulder at Lee. Lee sat up straight and smiled reassuringly at him, his fingernails digging into his palm through the bandages. 

A member of Gaara’s own Council stood to testify that Gaara was emotionally unstable, unpredictable and just downright strange, as well as to reveal the fact that Gaara had for years now been a patient, along with his two siblings, of a medical ninja who specialized in mental and emotional disorders. 

“Unstable, unpredictable and strange are descriptions that can be applied to any jonin. And I think we can all agree that most shinobi could benefit from such medical treatment, if only it were more accessible,” Tsunade snarled at him.

When questioned, the Councilman was forced to admit that Gaara had not been excessively violent since he was twelve years old, had not been a jinchuriki for years now, and was actually abnormally gentle and compassionate for a shinobi.

A member of Gaara’s ANBU guard, hidden behind a blank mask that concealed both of his identities, was brought in to testify that one of his comrades had been killed by Leaf ninjas when it was discovered that he had been responsible for passing information to the Kusakage that had lead to the ambush in the Land of Rivers.

There was a round of whispering among the gathered lords and Kages.

“That is reasonable,” the Misukage finally said. “Any Kage would do the same if they found that they had been betrayed by a member of their own ANBU. Had it been me, your comrade would not have died a quick death, nor would he have been permitted to fight for his life. It would be a coward’s death for him, and a slow, painful one at that.”

The Wind Daimyo nodded and waved the man away. “This is inadmissible as evidence. You are dismissed.”

Gaara’s defense began after lunch. The medical ninja, whom Kiyomori had spoken about earlier, testified about his long term treatment of the three siblings. He told the assembled court about the damage inflicted by their father and their upbringing, the loss of their mother and uncle. He spoke about the state they were in when they returned from the chunin exams in Konoha, and the progress Gaara had made thereafter in managing his anger, coping with his pain and unlearning the legacy of hatred, mistrust and fear that his father had left him. 

After that it was Naruto’s turn to stand before the assembly and retell the story of his encounter with Gaara during the attack on Konoha so many years ago and the friendship that had grown between them since. He was also made to retell the story of Gaara’s abduction by the Akatsuki and resurrection by Lady Chiyo. He was perhaps not so calm about this as Temari had hoped.

“What do you mean, why am I so upset about this?” Naruto demanded of one sniveling lawyer, his voice echoing off the walls and chakra crackling in the air around him. “When I met Gaara, I saw myself as I would have been if no one had bothered to love me, if I hadn’t had friends to set me on the right path. We didn’t ask for this, you know! We didn’t ask to have demons locked inside us, to be made a weapon for our villages. Nobody ever cared what Gaara wanted for his future. You’re lucky that he took it to heart when you told him that his purpose in life was to defend Suna. He could have turned his back on all of you ungrateful, cold-hearted -” A quelling glare from Sakura shut him up. “What I mean is, Gaara has risked his life a hundred times over to protect that village and all his friends. He even died for it once already! It’s absurd that we have to prove this! He’s already proved it himself!”

“Yes, thank you, Mr. Uzumaki,” the Fire Daimyo had said, rubbing his temples. “That will be all.”

A steady stream of friends and Councilmen, shinobi and citizens followed to testify that Gaara was a talented shinobi, a great leader, a kind person. A young chunin in a Sand Village headband stood to read an impassioned letter that Matsuri had written from the office where she was acting as Kazekage in Gaara’s absence, which related how he had taken her under his wing when she was a terrified academy student and had helped her work through her past trauma to find her confidence and her strength as a shinobi.

Finally, the Wind Daimyo raised his hand, smirked slightly and said, “I think now that the court would be most interested to hear from Mr. Rock Lee of Konoha. Lee went to take his place before the assembly amid a commotion of whispers. Sakura caught his eye and gave him an encouraging thumbs up from behind Lady Tsunade’s chair.

“Now then, Rock Lee,” the Wind Daimyo began. “I believe your first encounter with Lord Gaara was a fight, was it not?”

“It was our first chunin exam,” Lee replied. “We were randomly selected to battle one another during a preliminary match for the third exam.”

“And you were injured quite badly, were you not?” One of the lawyers asked.

“I was. Had it not been for Lady Tsunade I would not have been able to continue my career as a shinobi. I would have been injured quite permanently.”

“And yet you seem to hold no ill will against him for this?”

“I was trying to kill him too,” Lee reminded them.

“Quite,” another lawyer conceded. “But how is it that you then became friends after such a violent encounter?”

“I was fighting a Sound ninja named Kimimaro,” Lee explained. “I held my own for a long time but I was still recovering from my surgery and the pain and fatigue were starting to slow me down. I knew I was going to lose, I had accepted that I would die when Gaara appeared. He saved my life, defeated Kimimaro, and allowed me to lean on his shoulder as we walked back to Konoha. After that I was always happy to see him.”

“Why was Gaara there? Why would he bother to help you?”

Lee smiled as he remembered. “After his encounter with Naruto, he felt that he owed Konoha a great debt. That is something I have always admired about him, his sense of justice.”

“And so you have been friends for a great many years now?”

“Of course!” Lee nodded enthusiastically. “We have been on many missions together and we enjoy spending time together.”

“Rumour has it,” a lawyer pointed out, with an expression like a shark scenting blood in the water. “That the Kazekage enjoys spending quite a lot of time with you, perhaps more than any of his other ‘friends.’”

Lee tilted his head to the side, a picture of wide-eyed innocence. “Well yes, we spend time together whenever we can.”

Another lawyer pounced. “So how would you characterize your relationship, then? Comrades? Friends? Something more, perhaps?”

Whispers broke out throughout the hall. Lee smiled and said, “I have been fortunate enough to be his comrade and his friend. And yes, more than that; I have been his teammate, his sparring partner, and his bodyguard. No one else has ever been so precious to me.”

The lawyers whispered among themselves. One of them turned back to Lee and demanded, “Define precious.”

Temari caught Lee’s eye and shook her head in warning, but next to her on the bench Gaara sat still as stone, eyes unblinking. The only indication of his agitation was the wisp of sand that wove in between his fingers, back and forth like a reassuring touch. His face was blank but Lee could see the uncertainty and hurt in his eyes.

“You can tell us the truth,” another lawyer coaxed, her gentle voice belied by her vicious false smile. “You don’t need to be afraid of him.”

“Afraid of him?”

“Of course, Mr. Lee.” She stepped slowly closer to where he sat, like a cat stalking a mouse. “If you really are as close to him as it appears, then you must have seen what he’s  _ really  _ like, his true self. But you don’t need to be afraid to tell us.”

“Of course I have seen his true self,” Lee said slowly. “But he is not the person you want everyone to believe he is. He is precious to me and I could never be afraid of him.”

“There’s that word again,” another lawyer stepped up beside his colleague, hemming Lee in. “‘Precious.’ Did he coach you to say that? If you can’t even tell us what it means. . .”

Behind the lawyers backs, Gaara’s face was stony and his eyes couldn’t quite meet Lee’s. Lee imagined that he was trembling, or perhaps Lee himself was shaking so hard that nothing in the courtroom appeared to be still.

“I love him,” Lee blurted out. He took a deep breath. “That is what it means.”

There was a moment of complete silence in the hall, then a hundred voices broke out all at once, whispering furiously. Temari slumped back in her seat and rolled her eyes. Kankuro shrugged and patted her arm.

Gaara hadn’t moved, but his eyes snapped up to meet Lee’s, and a mixture of shock and relief showed plainly on his face. 

“I am in love with him,” Lee repeated, speaking slowly and purposefully now. “I have been for a long time. I know exactly who and what he is and I love him for all of that.”

The lawyers made no response but turned to whisper among themselves.

“Do you have any further questions for me?” Lee asked. The full significance of what he had just done was starting to dawn on him, and the eyes and whispers of the assembly started to feel like a physical weight, pinning him to his chair.

“No, Mr. Lee,” the Wind Daimyo spoke up. “That will be all.”

Gaara’s eyes followed Lee as he stepped down from the dais and made his way towards his seat. As he passed, Gaara reached out and grabbed his hand. Lee gave it a quick squeeze but when made to move away, Gaara didn’t let go. Instead, he rose from the bench and stepped close to Lee.

“Thank you,” he murmured. “You didn’t have to do that. . . but thank you.”

“Is it okay?” Lee whispered. “Temari told me not to.”

“It’s not exactly how we had planned on making that kind of announcement.” Gaara shrugged. “But I don’t mind.”

Lee leaned forward until his forehead rested against Gaara’s.

“I just could not bear to have them speak that way about you, about us,” Lee told him, taking Gaara’s other hand in his. “I could not allow anyone to believe such a thing.”

“Thank you,” Gaara whispered again. His lips brushed across Lee’s cheek and the whispers in the hall crescendoed.

“I should get back to my seat.” Lee gave his hands a last squeeze and stepped back but Gaara still did not let go.

“No. Stay.”

He prodded Lee onto the bench beside Temari and sat beside him, still holding his hand, very obviously leaning against him. Lee smiled sheepishly at Temari who sighed and patted his shoulder.

“Thanks for not breaking anything,” she muttered. “I hope you know what you’ve gotten yourself into.”

Lee looked down at Gaara and grinned. “I do. And it is worth it.”

It was past dark by the time that the testimonies had finished. The Daimyos conferred briefly and then announced that they, along with the rest of the jury of officials would closet themselves for the night to discuss the evidence and announce their verdict once court resumed the following morning.

Gaara did not sleep that night; his first night without sleep since he had taken Sakura’s medicine at the beginning of the trial. Lee sat up through the whole night with him on the golden roof of the palace, gazing out silently over the desert oasis, the palace’s many spires, and the rolling dunes beyond. Lee’s arms around Gaara and his steady presence at Gaara’s back told him that Lee was with him no matter what the morning might bring. He tried, but he had no idea how to tell Lee just how grateful he was for this. The best he could do was a long kiss and a whispered, “I love you, thank you for staying with me through this.”

“I told you,” Lee whispered back. “I always will.”

They took their seats in the courtroom the next morning, Gaara as tense as an over-wound spring and Lee carrying his fifth cup of coffee, whispers following them as they made their way to their seat. The Wind Daimyo stood before the assembly, spread his arms dramatically and announced the jury’s verdict.

“This court finds that Lord Gaara is indeed fit to hold the esteemed office of Kazekage. In light of this, the former Councilman Kiyomori of Suna will be tried for the crimes of which he stands accused; treason, murder, consorting with rogue ninjas, harbouring rogue ninjas, conspiracy with foreign ninjas considered enemies by his village, theft of village secrets, and no less than twelve counts of attempted assassination.”

* * * * *

“Maybe this trial will not continue as long as we thought,” Lee fretted a few days later. “It seems that they are drawing close to sentencing.”

“Of course they are,” Gaara agreed lazily, looking up from the report he was reading. “It really shouldn’t have gone on this long in the first place.”

Lee’s arms tightened around him, and he began kissing the back of Gaara’s neck.

“Lee, I have to read all these reports Matsuri sent me. You’re distracting me.”

“No, you are distracting me,” Lee protested, kissing Gaara’s shoulder. “You are naked.”

“You’re naked too,” Gaara reminded him. He was once again sitting in what he had decided was his favourite place on earth; in between Lee’s legs, leaning back against his chest, both of them completely naked as they had been whenever they got a chance to be alone since their first night here.

Gaara tossed the report aside and sighed, leaning his head back against Lee’s shoulder. He closed his eyes as Lee took advantage of his tilted head to begin kissing his throat, his jaw, his cheek, his ear.

He wasn’t ready to go home yet and part ways with Lee for some undetermined length of time. Not again, not so soon after they had been separated for so long. As usual, he had the urge to beg Lee to come with him. As Lee lifted Gaara’s arm to trail kisses up to his wrist, Gaara thought about what it would be like if Lee could come home with him and never leave, if he could see him every day, do  _ this _ everyday, share a bed with him every night. But they both had careers to think about, careers in separate villages that were three days walk from one another. Careers that frequently took them to opposite corners of the world. Leaving Suna for good was out of the question. Maybe once he retired, but he had no intention of doing that any time soon. And Lee’s team needed him as much as Lee needed them. Gaara would not presume to ask him to choose him over them, to leave everyone and everything he knew, to trade the cool, leaf dappled sunshine of Konoha for the wind-scoured, scorching heat of Suna.

“What are you thinking about?” Lee whispered.

“How do you know I’m thinking about anything? How do you know I’m not just enjoying this without a thought in my head?”

“There is never not a thought in your head,” Lee snorted. “Besides, you have a certain face you make when you think about something that is troubling you deeply.”

Gaara sighed. “I’m just not ready to say good-bye to you again.”

“I am not either,” Lee admitted. “But it will not be like last time. Things will be peaceful, we will be able to see each other more often.”

“I hope so.”

Lee tilted Gaara’s chin up and brought their lips together. Gaara tried to turn, to press himself closer and deepen the kiss, but Lee held him in place against his chest. Lee kissed him leisurely, taking his time, stroking his fingers along the underside of Gaara’s jaw, down his neck and across his chest. Gaara liked to sit this way because it made him feel warm and safe, supported and loved, but as one of Lee’s hands traveled down his side, brushed over his hip, and stroked his thigh, he realized that it also left the entirety of his body open to Lee’s gaze, and his touch.

He uncrossed his ankles and pressed himself up into Lee’s kisses, parting Lee’s lips with his tongue and reaching back with one hand to caress his face.

How quickly that all-consuming, feverish feeling of longing threatened to overwhelm him now. All it took was a single kiss, a touch, for Lee to so much as look at him in a certain way and he found himself teetering on the precipice of his own self control, struggling to remember why they had decided to do this slowly in the first place. After all, they both knew what was going to happen, and they both wanted to, didn’t they? Why resist it? Why not finally give in to it? Why not . . . at least a little bit?

He caught Lee’s hand as it wandered over his stomach and dragged it downwards to press Lee’s palm against his dick. Hesitantly, Lee’s fingers wrapped around it, his thumb stroked across its head and Gaara’s head fell back on Lee’s shoulder, his eyes fluttering shut.

“Gaara?” Lee asked.

“Yes.”

“Gaara,” Lee whispered again, the hesitation gone from his voice as his hand moved in slow, experimental strokes. Gaara moaned and craned back to kiss Lee’s cheek. Lee’s free arm clamped around him, holding him fast against his chest, as he picked up the pace, falling into a more confident rhythm. Gaara exhaled breathy moans of pleasure in time with the movements of Lee’s hand.

“You have no idea how badly I have wanted to do this,” Lee whispered in his ear. “How badly I have wanted to touch you this way. I want to make you feel good, I want to make you . . . like you did to me when we first got here.”

“Ohh,” Gaara whimpered.

“You deserve pleasure and I want to give it to you,” Lee went on, his lips brushing Gaara’s ear as he spoke. He sounded almost as affected as Gaara felt.

“I want you to feel good too,” Gaara mumbled. 

“I do,” Lee replied and pushed his hips forward to emphasize the hardness that pressed insistently against the small of Gaara’s back. Gaara gasped and shifted back against him. 

“You are so perfect,” Lee whispered. “So beautiful. I could watch you forever. I want to touch you all over. I want to kiss every inch of your body and then start all over again.”

Gaara’s hips seemed to be moving of their own accord, rising to meet every stroke of Lee’s hand. Lee’s thumb grazed over a sensitive spot on the underside of the head of his dick and Gaara shuddered and cried out. Lee did it again, intentionally this time, and again, swirling his thumb with each pass. Gaara clamped his hand over his mouth to stifle his cries as molten heat raged through his body, coiling into a mounting tension at the base of his spine. 

“It is okay,” Lee whispered, gently pulling Gaara’s hand away from his mouth.

“Lee,” Gaara gasped, and again, louder, “Lee!”

“Oh god, Gaara, yes,” Lee whispered back. 

Gaara could no longer hear the sounds he was making, wasn’t aware of the way his heels dug into the quilt as he tried to push himself even closer to Lee, didn’t seem to notice that Lee’s arm around his chest was holding him so tightly he could scarcely breathe. All there was in the world was Lee and this exhilarating, overwhelming, spiraling pleasure carrying him towards. . .

“Gaara,” Lee sighed his name against the side of his face and then kissed his forehead.

Gaara tried to respond but all that came out was an incoherent cry as he twisted to press his face against the side of Lee’s neck and his orgasm finally washed over him like a breaking wave. His hips jerked erratically, his hands grabbing at any part of Lee he could reach. Lee was still whispering but Gaara couldn’t make sense of the words. As he came back down from his high, he let himself fall boneless against Lee’s chest, gasping for breath, feeling wrung out and sated and better than he could ever remember feeling. 

He opened his eyes to look up at Lee and found Lee gazing back at him, with a soft, lovesick expression that made Gaara feel like he might just melt away entirely. 

“I love you so much,” Gaara tried to whisper, but it came out only half coherent. Lee seemed to understand anyway. He kissed Gaara’s forehead again. 

“Was that okay?” Lee asked, his forehead suddenly creasing in worry.

“Yes,” Gaara breathed. “That was incredible.”

“What about -”

“Slowly?” Gaara finished for him. “Lee, think about what we’ve been doing since we got here. Is this really that much further?”

“Guess not,” Lee admitted, laughing. He lifted his sticky right hand away from where it had fallen to rest against Gaara’s hip and looked at it curiously for a few moments. Then he raised it to his face and experimentally licked one of his knuckles.

“Lee!” Gaara gasped, scandalized.

“Just curious.” Lee tried for a nonchalant shrug but blushed spectacularly instead. “We should really clean ourselves up.”

He gently sat Gaara up, slid out from behind him and laid him back down on the mattress as he wandered into the bathroom. Gaara listened as the water ran, knowing he should get up as well, but his eyelids were starting to droop, and the feeling of peace and deep relaxation throughout his entire body made it difficult to care. He stretched himself out luxuriantly and let sleep softly overtake him.


	6. Decisions Made

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm posting this chapter early because it's a short one. I'll be posting the first chapter of the next story in the series on Saturday.

The jury had been shut up in their chambers all morning and Gaara was finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate. The conversation kept running in circles, petty arguments breaking out. Every time his mind drifted away from the discussion at hand, it conjured up teasing images of Lee licking his knuckles, or remembered the things he had whispered in Gaara’s ear while he had. . .

“You seem different today,” Tsunade remarked beside him.

“Today is a good day.” Gaara shrugged. 

Tsunade squinted at him. “Do you have a stash you're not telling me about? Shizune hid mine and then Sakura drank half of it. She said it was to recover from a particularly awkward conversation.”

“No, I don’t have any sake,” Gaara huffed. “As for Sakura, I apologize, that’s probably my fault.”

Tsunade smirked at him. “I had guessed.”

Horrified, Gaara remembered that his room shared a wall with Tsunade’s.

“Anyways, Gaara,” Tsunade mercifully changed the subject. “I wanted to propose something to you. I’m not really satisfied with the direction this is all taking and I think there could be more trouble in the future.”

“Lord Gaara, Lady Tsunade, if you please,” the Wind Daimyo addressed them as though they were wayward Academy students. “We would like to decide upon the sentencing  _ today.  _ Your continued attentiveness and participation is appreciated."

* * * * *

Lee squinted up at the desert sky and stretched his arms behind his back as Tenten flopped down into the sand at his feet, breathing hard.

“That’s enough, Lee. I need a break. I need water. How do people live out here?” She complained.

“Be careful, Tenten. Dehydration is a serious matter. Neji, would you like to train with me for a bit?”

Neji looked back from where he had been scanning the horizon with his Byakugan, trying to count lizards on a cactus in the far distance. 

“I suppose,” he agreed. “If they call us in for the sentencing today I’ll be surprised.”

He squeezed Tenten’s shoulder quickly as they passed each other and she smiled at him.

“So, you two are okay then?” Lee asked Neji quietly as they fell into their fight stances

“Yes,” Neji said, lunging forwards to strike at Lee’s nose with the heel of his hand. “I still think she deserves better than this, but if this is what makes her happy, I think it will be okay.”

Lee dropped under Neji’s hand and aimed a kick at his throat. “I am glad to hear that. I believe in you two.”

“Thank you, Lee.” Neji deflected his kick with a casual wave of his hand and stepped in for a strike to the eye. “You know, it’s awful, but it wasn’t until I thought I had ruined everything permanently that I realized what an idiot I was being.”

Lee grabbed Neji’s hand out of the air and countered with a punch of his own. “That sounds about right.”

“It kills me that I can’t offer her any kind of future,” Neji admitted, stepping through Lee’s punch to target a chakra point between his ribs.

“Tenten doesn’t need you or any man to have a future,” Lee told him as he leapt out of range. “She just wants to love and be loved.”

“You are the biggest sap,” Neji complained, throwing an arm up to block a kick. “But you’re right.”

“Of course I am,” Lee cried, swinging his heel high in the air and bringing it down towards the crown of Neji’s head. “Look at Gaara and I, I do not know what kind of future we can have. I just love him, and that is all that matters.”

“And how is that going?” Neji asked, dodging Lee’s heel and delivering a quick jab to the inside of his knee as it whistled past his head.

Lee yelped, and punched Neji in the gut. “Wonderfully. The only thing that is not perfect is that we will have to go back to our own villages and be apart again after this trial.”

“So you’re probably hoping that the sentencing takes a while,” Neji wheezed, retreating from Lee. They readjusted their stances, Neji struggling to regain his breath and Lee repeatedly flexing one knee, his foot and lower leg tingling unpleasantly.

“I would not mind,” Lee admitted.

“How do you like the weather out here,” Neji asked suddenly as Lee charged at him again.

“I do not mind it,” Lee said, shrugging as he leapt into a spinning kick.

Neji planted his feet and caught the kick on his forearms, forcing Lee into a spectacular backflip.

“Actually,” Lee went on as he came in for a barrage of punchs. “Gaara has been teaching me about the plants and animals that live out here. It is not a wasteland as it appears at first. It is incredible.”

“Is that so,” said Neji idly, catching Lee’s fist and jabbing three chakra points on his arm.

“Yes. Why do you ask?” Lee spun around to bring his elbow up under Neji’s chin. He was not able to dodge away fast enough to avoid Neji’s strike to a chakra point between his ribs.

“No reason.” Neji winced, holding his jaw. “Want to break for lunch.”

“I am starving!” Lee exclaimed, leaning all his weight awkwardly to one side of his body.

“Thank god,” Tenten groaned, pouring the last of her water over her face. “Let’s get out of the sun.”

* * * * *

A hush fell over the hall as the Wind and Fire Daimyos stood to address the accused and the gathered crowd.

“For the five Councilmen of Kusagakure, for their part in the conspiracy and for the crimes of which they have been accused,” the Fire Daimyo announced. “This court finds you guilty and strips you of the ranks of jonin and chunin, as well as any other honours and titles you may hold. You retain only the rank of genin. You will return to your village and start over as new shinobi or retire as civilians in disgrace as you see fit.”

A shocked murmuring among the crowd swelled and then died away again. From where he sat in the gallery, Lee could see Tsunade nod in satisfaction. 

“Sen of the Hakone Clan, you who had the audacity to declare yourself Kusakage,” The Wind Daimyo said. “This court finds you guilty of all the crimes of which you stand accused. You are to be stripped of the ranks of jonin, chunin, and genin, as well as any other honours or titles you may hold. You are hereby barred from any activity as a Shinobi and forbidden from taking on any type of leadership role. Representatives from the five great ninja villages will escort you back to your home village and there oversee the election of a new leader and council. They will watch you closely and if you are found to be attempting to foment further unrest, stricter penalties shall be enforced. If the people of Kusagakure wish to enforce further punishment for the suffering they have endured as a result of your actions, they have the right to do so.”

“I only hope that will be enough,” Tenten murmured beside Lee, scarcely heard under the shouting of the crowd.

Finally the Wind Daimyo beckoned Gaara forward to read the last sentence. 

“Mr. Kiyomori,” he addressed his former Councilman. “This court finds you guilty of all charges. You also shall be stripped of all ranks, titles and honours, including but not limited to Councilman, jonin, chunin and genin. You are never again to set foot in Suna and there shall be a standing order to kill you on sight if we are given reason to suspect that you will attempt to do so. For the harm that you have caused my village, my family, my friends, those who are precious to me, I believe you deserve much worse than this. Since you consider me a demon, I suppose you must count yourself lucky that this court stayed my hand.”

Lee could not see Gaara’s eyes under the brim of his hat, but he saw the corners of his mouth curve upwards in a grim imitation of a smile. His heart clenched at the tension in Gaara’s posture, the pain in his voice. In the front pocket of Lee’s vest, something twitched restlessly. He realized it was the tiny handful of sand he had carried since they parted ways so long ago in the Land of Rivers, unsuspecting of everything that would follow. He patted his pocket soothingly, and below on the dais, Gaara’s hand moved to brush across the small gourd that hung at his hip.

* * * * *

Sakura and Kankuro had joined forces to insist that everyone who had travelled to the trial from Konoha and Suna should celebrate the verdict together. Lee would have preferred to spend the last evening at the palace alone with Gaara, but instead found himself seated next to him at a crowded table in the private backroom of a restaurant. It wasn’t so bad, he reflected. He was well fed and surrounded by friends, everyone in high spirits. 

“To our victory!” Shizune called, raising her glass as the last of the dishes were cleared away. Everyone cheered and there was a round of clinking of glasses. 

Gaara slipped sideways to lean his head on Lee’s shoulder, smiling softly and Lee looped his arm around his waist

“Alright everyone, this is what’s happening,” Tsunade announced, slamming her cup down on the table abruptly. “Gaara and I are not completely convinced that these sentences will be the end of this conflict. It’s definitely better than it could have been, but we need to be wary. We have decided that it would be best if we could have a chance to regroup and plan, away from the other officials here. So, when we leave here tomorrow, we will all travel together. We’re going to make a quick stop in Suna so Gaara can check in with Matsuri and announce the verdicts to his people officially. Then Gaara, Kankuro and Temari will continue on with us to Konoha. They will stay with us for one week and then return home again.”

The last sentence was almost drowned out by Lee’s cry of delight.

“You never told me that!” He exclaimed, nudging Gaara.

“Surprise,” Gaara murmured.

Across the table from them, Shikamaru squeezed Temari. “I guess you’re not sick of me yet, then?”

“Give it another week or two,” she told him, kissing his cheek. Next to them, Ino pretended to vomit into Choji’s lap.

Gaara did not sleep that night. He lay awake again, Lee’s chest rising and falling slowly beneath his chin while Gaara stared up at his sleeping face, as he had done on the first night there. A little more than a week. Another handful of precious days and nights like this. More time to enjoy Lee’s company, to keep exploring, slowly of course, what it meant to be in love and alone together. It took him a long while to figure out what this bubbling feeling was; he was giddy, absolutely bursting with excitement about the possibilities. He could stay in Lee’s apartment instead of the hotel, they could train together in the dojo again, climb to the top of the Hokage monument, take long walks through the forest. He thought about walking with Lee so deep into the forest that no one else could find them, picturing Lee naked in the dappled, dancing shade, against the green backdrop of the woods.

The giddy, bubbling feeling and wild daydreams lasted throughout the morning, distracting him as he tried to oversee the preparation of the baggage and traveling procession.

“Will you pull your head out of your ass and pay attention,” Temari finally snapped, swatting at the back of his head with the reins. 

“Hmm?” Gaara asked as the sand shield dissipated and trickled down the back of his neck. “What was that?”

“Just get on the damn horse,” Temari griped, tossing him the reins. “We’re all ready to go.”

Lee seemed to materialize out of nowhere and held out his hands, offering Gaara a leg up.

“I’m a shinobi, Lee,” Gaara reminded him. “I can get onto a horse by myself.”

“Yes, I know you can,” Lee said brightly. “But I like to help anyway.”

“Well,” Gaara sighed as he placed his knee in Lee’s hands and allowed himself to be boosted into the saddle. “I suppose this is better than you just picking me and carrying me around without warning.”

“You would rather I not do that?” Lee asked, seeming alarmed.

“I didn’t say that,” Gaara protested quickly. 

Lee threw back his head and laughed, then fell into step next to Lotus as she pranced through the sand to the head of the column of traveling shinobi. Lee walked alongside him throughout the entire journey, his hand resting on the stirrup, chatting contentedly about everything from Tenten and Neji, to his training plans upon reunion with Gai-sensei, to a long list of every desert creature he had managed to befriend so far.

When the high walls of Suna finally came into sight on the horizon, Gaara leaned down in the saddle to whisper to Lee.

“Want to see Kankuro and Temari absolutely lose it?”

“What do you have in mind?” Lee asked cautiously.

“It’s fun, trust me. Come up here.” He patted the saddle behind him and reined Lotus to a halt. Lee sprang lightly onto the horse’s back, wedging himself between Gaara’s back and the gourd attached to the saddle.

“Hold on to me,” Gaara instructed.

“Gladly!”

Once Lee’s arms were securely gripped around his waist he nudged Lotus with his heels and made a sharp whistling sound. The horse dug her hooves into the sand and sprang forward in a great leap. She hit the ground again at a furious gallop. 

“For fuck’s sake! Not again!” Kankuro shouted, but the wind whipped his voice away from Gaara’s ears, along with Temari’s wordless shriek of fury and the cheering of the other ninjas as the horse raced faster and faster. All he could hear was the thunder of hooves on sand and Lee’s wild laughter behind him as Lotus ran, neck stretched out and tail streaming behind them, towards home.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!! I would love to hear from you if you want to leave a comment here or come visit me on [tumblr.](https://lilac-writes.tumblr.com/%22)


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